6-30-2013

I had such a fun time in the hives this weekend! The sun was shining, the winds were calm, and the bees were busy.

I opened my first hive - the one with the silver top - and found a beautiful pattern of brood in the second level along with normal nectar patterns for the outside of the broods nest. For those of you who have never been in a hive before, the bees draw out wax to hold the nectar/brood/honey and week to week, I have to peel the wax apart from each frame because the wax glues everything together. It isn't uncommon to have larvae fall out of frames due to the wax being separated in a weird way. This week, I noticed a larvae fall out of a frame and land on top of another frame. A bee quickly took the larvae and passed it along to another bee who passed it along to another bee and so on and so forth until the larvae was back in the hive. It was such a neat thing to watch!

When pulling out each frame, I noticed the bees were bringing in a lot of pollen and a lot of nectar. I love when bees are carrying pollen - it can be very colorful. 

I knew my queen was around because the population is growing like crazy! I was able to find her fairly quickly and noticed she had grown since I'd last seen her (is that common?). I continued on and was pleasantly surprised at how everything was coming along - we are still behind but maybe only about 3 weeks behind now.

I opened my second hive - the one with the blue top and was very happy to see that since I've added the second level, the queen is laying in a much nicer pattern. The population in this hive is smaller than my other one and they aren't taking in as much nectar but things are moving along. I found my queen in this hive as well. I think this hive is still about 4 weeks behind.

I've been encouraging people to come out to the hives with me because I enjoy being asked questions and either answering them or finding out the answer if I'm not sure. I have one little guy interested in coming with me but he says I have to find a "costume" his size.

Thanks for reading - hoping to have someone with a camera come out with me sometime soon so I can post more pictures!