Ok, so you remember a couple of weeks ago when the bees arrived? And we introduced them to their new home, our two new hives? Well, this past weekend, it was warm enough to open the hives and pay a visit to see how the girls were doing.
So of course, the first step is to don our bee suits. Here I am in mine!
We have three hives. One established one, and two new ones. We opened up the new ones first. Wow! They looked good. (Or at least from everything we've read, and from talking to longtime beekeepers, we think they looked good!)
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See those frames of comb that my husband is looking at? Each frame contains about 7000 cells. The bees use these cells for storing food, making honey, and raising brood. Every time we inspect our colony, it's important that we note what's going on in these cells, because it helps us judge the performance and health of our bees. So we look for ample pollen and nectar, lots of eggs and brood, and if the wax cappings look normal.
Since this was the first time in the NEW hives, we took out the queen cage and made sure the queen had been released. Remember what that is? When the bees arrived, the queen was plugged (with a candy plug) in her cage. We found the cage, and as you can see, the plug is GONE, and the queen had been released. GOOD NEWS! In fact, everything about the two new hives looked great! We found signs that the queen has been busy. There were several eggs and lots of new larvae in the 'brooding chamber.' Yay! That means the hive has accepted the queen, and she is busy doing her job.
Do you see the queen in there? Ha ha. Yeah, she's impossible to see. Here's a closeup. See how's she's much longer than the others? And her markings are a little different.
Anyway, so everything looked wonderful. We're getting off to a great start!
As I'm sure you've figured out, my husband and I both LOVE beekeeping. We really love our bees! I know that sounds weird, but we truly do. We look forward to when we get to visit their hives again! They're such remarkable insects, with amazing endearing qualities. They're really very gentle creatures. Even though we have 3 hives, with bees flying all over our property, no one (visitors nor the 5 of us!) has ever been stung.
I think anyone that loves nature in its purest form would love bees and beekeeping like we do. It's a wonderful hobby!
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3 comments:
Diane, it's so interesting to learn about your bees. I know what you mean about loving them. Klaus used to raise them too and he felt the same way. Isn't that interesting? I wonder if this is a small example of the way God (OUR protector) loves us.
I'm glad the new bee colonies are thriving! Enjoying the photo journaling on their colony life as well!
I've never had any problem with bees unless I accidentally stepped on one! OUCH! I've done that twice in my life - walking barefoot in spring grasses where clover was flowering. They WILL sting if you step on them! LOL!
But they are very family oriented and all work together very well, each doing their specific jobs with vigor! They are fun to study! And I like the honey and the beeswax! : )
Ya'll be good!
HUgs
Lynn
Hi Diane! You don't know me.. think I found your blog through Split Decisionz. Love you blog layout..so cute! I have a question for you. How do you put your pictures in your posts so nicely, with the frames and all and slanted too?? Wow- it looks so nice! I'm new to all this blogger and widgets stuff..but really enjoying trying to things, so thought I might as well ask you! If it's complicated don't worry about it. Hope you're feeling better...
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