The Latest in Bee News

The bees were inspected again today.  We were looking at them to make sure they are thriving (yes they are) and to see if there are eggs and larvae and what progress are they making on pulling comb in the new frames and all that good stuff.  Didn't see either queen, but they are there somewhere.

Taking apart the top of the hive

Smoking the little guys to calm their worried souls

The first hive showed no progress at all in the top set of frames that we put on last week.  This is all good, as they are pretty robust and seemingly busy in there.

Beginning the inspection of the lower brood box

A few more burr combs

The bees beginning to pull comb in the last few frames

One of the frames- notice the open cells, where brood has hatched out

Another frame- capped cells, worker bees, lots going on

Carefully removing the burr combs

You really can tell when the bees are irritated!  We used plenty of smoke this time- no stinging to report- yet.

Beginning to pull comb in the new brood box of the second hive

Busy busy workers tending to the young, making some honey, storing some pollen

All was well there, we will have to make more syrup for them by Wednesday or Thursday.  It is interesting for sure!!

Bees are more complex than one would ever have imagined, and it certainly is a spot of joy in the yard and in my life.

Bee update and other stuff

blood root

I was planning to do separate bee updates and posts from other things, but you know, it takes a long time to do one and I am too damn tired to do two. So folks, you will have to BEE PATIENT AND FORGIVING!  HAHAHAHA  these bee jokes are just going to go on and on, you know that, right??  :)

Brushing the bees away from the queen cage

carefully replacing one of the honeycomb dealies where the queen cage was

Our bee tools- hive tool, paint brush, multitool and spray bottle of sugar water

Anywho, we went into the hives tonight and took the queens out of their lil cages.  They could have been out already, but the corks that we were supposed to remove and replace with marshmallow fell into the cage, and then got in the way of the queen getting out.  sigh.  Well that was no big deal, and we just pulled the screen off the cage and dropped her in.  For anyone who thinks they can tell a queen bee from the rest- that is highly unlikely.  I mean she looked exactly like the rest of them, except she was holding her butt up in the air, very unqueenly if you ask me.  But hey, what do I know.  Anyway, she disappeared into the crowd.  I am sure they know who she is.  Interestingly, they had already started "pulling comb" on the side of one of the queen cages.  VERY fascinating stuff.  It is a trick to deal with those bees all clinging to the different parts.  We were trying to replace the combs without squishing anyone, which we mostly succeeded with.  Everything is all good to go now, we shouldn't have to do anything except fill the feeder pail once in a while.  They can take it from here.  We will just keep an eye on things and make sure there aren't marauders around.

Removing one of the parts of the hive to make sure the queen got out of the other cage - you can see the watering pan that has rocks in it for the bees to land on to get water

Crazy isn't it

And of course we had the cork issue here too.  

The bees had started to make comb on the queen box!

So today I went for a little photo shoot of some flowers both planted and wild and got a few nice shots. It gives me so much pleasure to have these flowers around and I am assuming that pretty soon the bees will start visiting these different blossoms as well.  They were pretty busy in the hive today, haven't seen anyone out and about quite yet, but I bet that will come soon.

Crocus

Blood root

Anyway, here is a selection of some of my finest daffodils and there are a few mayflowers and blood roots too.

And as we go into spring, and then summer- remember to be a joy giver!  And save some of that joy for yourself.  If you can't bee happy with you, how can you find happiness in the little things in life.  And those little things are everything!