Frances and the Bee

We did a big inspection over Memorial Day weekend: the hives are looking strong so far.  We can see that each has a laying queen and is collecting pollen and nectar.  It will be a little while until the "honey flow" starts - when the bees are rapidly build up honey stores and nectar is highly available. Quickly, here are some photos from the time, starting with brave Mr. Bee trimming the grass in front of the hives: The Top Bar hive is looking really good (below) and we added some frames so they have more space to work. Below, you can see some capped honeycomb as well as some cells full of glistening nectar. You can also get a look at some larvae, in the stage before the cell is capped to allow for the rest of the growth: I love this - some comb absolutely packed with pollen! And here you can see the honeybee's main sources of food - pollen and nectar. The pollen is speckled and has different colors because of the different plants it is co...

Hello, again!  We've had a busy first couple of weeks with the new bees.  Our new top bar hive is already looking strong.  You can see the pollen nuggets on the bee returning to the hive in the photo below.  The likely source? Maybe trees, or... Dandelions. They're suddenly blooming all over. We were exploring a patch of them and found one of our girls hard at work. This little bee was very busy pollinating - visiting flower after flower, only stopping for a moment at times. Mr. Bee has already been adding the empty frames to the front of the box, so the queen can continue to lay eggs (her laying pattern is VERY good so far) and the workers can build comb and fill it with pollen and nectar. Our wintered hive is doing pretty well, too.  We're keeping a eye on everything, and as some other beekeepers decide to do with strong hives, we've decided to "split" the hive.  We purchased a new queen, put her in a new box, added some frames of ...