Sunday, June 21, 2015

All Hives Check - 6-21-2015

Had a chance to check all the hives today.

Pink Hive

This hive is by far the "slower" of the two hives in my backyard. The queen isn't impressing me.

Here is the top of the hive - looks just fine:


Nice to see young larvae:


But I really don't like the pattern - kind of spotty and irregular:


Didn't see the queen, but saw enough young larvae to tell me she is there. Going to keep an eye on this hive.

Brown Hive

Now *this* is what a good pattern looks like:


Not a lot of gaps / missing cells (those bullet-looking ones are drone cells, another sign of a healthy thriving hive)


While I was inspecting the hives, I looked over and saw that I had a helper!


A few weeks ago we think she actually got stung by a bee, trying to eat it (the side of her face/lip was swollen for a few days!)

Sutton

Recall that last week we discovered a queenless hive, and lots of queen cells. I made 2 nucs as a result, and wanted to check things out. It's too early to expect any new eggs, but a check wouldn't hurt.

Here is evidence of a born queen having torn out her rival's cells:



But then something surprised me: One of the nucs still had sealed queen cells!



Given all of the cells were about the same age, I wouldn't have expected that. According to bee math, the queen cells can be capped for 9 days, so technically it is possible...

So we'll wait and see another few weeks.


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