The weather rather spectacularly made it to 15'c today, and with hardly any wind it was gorgeous bee keeping weather. So absolutely no excuses. Today's mission was to open the hives and check that there was a good supply of food, just in case it turns suddenly cold and also to feed a growing colony, because what I was really looking for was a healthy laying queen bee and the first signs of young brood bees.
The early signs of healthiness were good. The fronts of the hive were in dappled sunshine and pretty soon began to resemble the M25 with bees bringing in pollen...
Right then.... no more dithering around trying to take pictures...Time to get into hive number one.
Oh Hello!
What on earth are you all doing up there on the inside of the crown board?
Now beginner bee keepers are always taught to check the inside of the roof and the crown board very carefully "just in case" the queen is there. But in two years I've never even been vaguely suspicious that the queen was anywhere other than safely in the hive....
Until now....
.....it took a few seconds to spot her...
Come on - look carefully - long body and orange legs.....There she is!
Now I'm going to have to check my notes. I think there should be a red marked queen in this hive... but there clearly isn't so really need to look carefully for some signs of worker brood to indicate she is properly mated and healthy...
That'll do ... Everything here looks good and healthy....
Time to move onto hive number two....
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| Happy bee keeper in action |
They've been building wax and filling empty cells with nectar... in fact as I was turning the frames over I could hear the nectar dripping out of the frames....
It started off looking oh-sooooo good.....but then as I reached the last two frames, still diligently searching for the queen, I spotted a worrying sight...
Rather than lovely biscuit looking worker brood, a frame of bubble wrap looking drone cells.
If there's a queen in there (I couldn't find her) she appears to have not been well mated.So rather than laying fertilised worker bees she is laying un-fertilised drone bees. This is not a good thing as with no workers on the way to hatching the colonies days may be numbered.
Finally hive number 3.
These girls have pretty much ignored the fondant....they seem to have treated it more as a play ground...
and have even tried building brace comb around it...
But inside..the hive there is definitely some worker brood, its a bit patchy but it definitely there...
And so is last year's queen..with her nice red blob on her shoulders....
So - two of three hives looking healthy. A much better start to this year than last.
I'm off to read up on what I can do about that queen less hive.... I sense I'm going to be very busy if this good weather continues...
Please please please continue
Ah Helen - I can't see the Queen - bottom of the class for me - can you make her wear her crown for the next set of photo's please. Good to see the girls again!!!
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