Bees are essential to a healthy environment and at Rufford Old Hall we have three hives with new queens, that are from our own stock of bees.
The queen is central to the hive and without the queen the colony would not survive.
You don’t always see the queen which is not surprising as she lives in a hive with up to 65,000 bees (in summer). Within the hive there are female worker bees and approximately 250 male drone bees that are bigger than the worker bees and wider than a queen.