Bees update for May

The bees are doing great this year!  

First of all, the weather has not sucked too badly for the little darlings, and mostly, they all started with frames that had drawn comb on them already.  This probably saved them a few weeks of work and energy that can be put into raising those baby bees.

The capped cells are brood

We have 3 hives this year, one went into the garden.  This is actually working out great, this hive was a little small as all those escapees diminished the numbers a bit.  Funny that we got the box with the hole in it.

Pretty sure these lighter colored capped cells are pollen and things like that.

Again this time we saw 2 of the 3 queens.  And we did not find her in the same  box as before.  So she was either unmarked- but I am positive she was- or she either died or she's elusive.  The hive looks robust, but next time we are going to inspect the frames very closely to see if it is a queen laying eggs.  Hopefully they can replace her quickly if she is indeed gone.

Sorry for the blurry picture- the bright blue dot is the queen

It is nice to know a little more about what we are doing this time around.  The sugar water is a cinch to fix and dealing with the whole thing is more comfortable.  

In fact we already are putting on the second brood box, which is considerably earlier than last year.  The MA is outside putting together the frames and wax for those boxes- only had enough for one second layer from last year.  More are in the making.  But that should happen tomorrow if it stops raining for a while.

Hoping for some better luck with the bees all around this year!  Live and learn I guess.

Hope you are finding a whole hive of joy this weekend.!