Lots of pollen!

The bees have been very active of late. We've had good weather, and the entrance of the hive has seen a flury of activity. I know there is a lot of pollen out there now for two reasons: 1) the bees are coming in with pollen baskets loaded with pollen, and 2) my eyes are itching like crazy!! I suffer from seasonal allergies. I don't think the bees bringing in pollen makes my allergies worse, since they have the pollen firmly packed on their legs. But I have been miserable these past few weeks as I try to figure out what over-the-counter medicine will work. My poor co-workers have to put up with my coughing and sneezing.

Today's inspection went well. I removed the top of the 2 cinderblock supports since as you can see in the picture above, the hive is very tall with all the supers on it. I didn't want to let things get too hard to work later in the season, so I took it off now. I also considered taking off the sugar syrup feeder, but others I've talked to say leave it on since it will stimulate the bees to produce wax to draw out more foundation.

I saw the queen today; she was in the upper super and I saw lots of eggs being laid. So she is doing what she is supposed to do. The bees had drawn out about 3 frames in the upper super, but there were still a couple of frames in the lower super with no wax yet. I moved one of the drawn out frames to the outer edge, and moved a couple of the undrawn frames closer to the middle, to encourage the bees to use those frames. They certainly aren't hurting for space, at least.

As i had mentioned once before, I am amazed as the variety of colors that the pollen the bees bring in has. Enlarge this picture to see for yourself:

So live goes on for yet another week in the life of bees.

P.S. Later in the day I stopped by a local honey producer, Hebert Honey. My wife and I stopped by his operation last fall to ask some questions., and he ended up giving us the nickel tour of his works. He was out working in the bee yard on Saturday, so we chatted for a while. I told him how my bees were doing; he recommended taking off the entrance reducer, since during this time of the season, the bees are busy bringing in pollen and nectar, and are too busy to rob other hives. So I did that when I got home.