Queen of the Sun

Last week we received our new DVD 'Queen of The Sun -What are the bees telling us"

It is a profound, alternative look at the global bee crisis. Taking us on a journey through the catastrophic disappearance of bees and the mysterious world of the beehive.


Many of the people featured in the film are biodynamic practitioners. Rudolf Steiner warned of  the collapse of  bee colonies that we are now experiencing way back in early 1900's. He said that the mechanisation of the bee industry would destroy bees.

Bees were once looked upon as a sacred and honey as a  gift from the bees, so sacred that it was never sold, but only given away as a gift until the 19th century. At this time hives were forced to conform to farming practices that made it easier for bee keepers to maximise profits. Sound familiar! But bees are not your ordinary farm animal. Our very existence depends on them. Bees pollinate 40% of our food. In the U.S. alone 5 million colonies have been lost.

Challenges for bees:

1. Mechanisation-
2.  Mono cultures- habitat loss. The almonds of California is a great example of this. Hives have to trucked in every year for pollination of the trees because the monoculture is so vast that there is nothing for the bees once the almonds have finished flowering.
3. Migratory bee keeping- bees from all over the world are brought together for pollination purpose which brings together any pests and diseases that the various bees may have.
4. Pesticides.
5. G.M. plants- compromise the immune system of bees.
6. Varroamite.
7. Artificial insemination of the Queen which leads to decreasing strength of the Queen. The lifespan of a Queen has decreased from 5-6 yrs to 1yr if she's lucky. The Queen is deeply connected to the sun forces. She flies 600ft into the air and will mate with up to 1 doz. drones. She will receive over 1 million sperm and produce millions of eggs, laying 1500 -2000 eggs a day  if allowed to reproduce naturally. 
8. Swarming is prevented.- A swarm is the hives natural way of procreation. After a new queen hatches , the old queen flies out of the hive with almost half the workers. They find a new place to build a hive and leave the old hive for the new queen.

The very next day after watching this wonderful film, one of our hives swarmed. Mark put a little honey into a bee box and coaxed the bees into the box. A few days later and another hive swarmed. We now have 6 hives. Today a friend rang to say that their hive at swarmed and could Mark help. They now have another hive. Bees are a very important part of our farm. We plant a diverse range of plants so that they always have forage, even in winter. And their honey is very precious. We often give it as gifts.