I headed north again this morning to check on my bees. I opened up Amelia's hive first, and was happy to see the bees hard at work and honeycomb built out on frames 4 - 8. (They're a little messy toward the top - I'm not sure what to make of that)
I was even happier to make my way through the frames, and find lots of goodies inside. What was most gratifying was that on frame 6, I found Amelia herself, happily working her way around the frame of well drawn out honeycomb.
This is the same picture, but it's easier to spot her this way.
Also exciting was seeing that the eggs were being well tended, and many of them were at the larvae stage (pointed out in the same picture again below), which means they're between 3 and 8 days old. In other frames, there were a few capped cells, which means they were older than 9 days. (It usually takes about 21 full days to have a worker bee emerge)
Hive 2, Beatrix's hive, was a little less advanced. There seem to be a significantly smaller population of bees, which would make sense after all the dead bees I saw under the hive last week. They must have been stressed out during the travel, for some reason, because they otherwise looked and acted quite healthy.
In this hive, only 3 frames had any comb or bees on them, and those weren't drawn out very far. (You can see how much white of the frame is showing vs the yellow of the drawn comb) But despite the smaller population and still not being able to find Beatrix herself (She must be very shy), the hive was very hard at work. So I'm going to trust she's in there and that the population will build up in due time.
I changed out the pollen patties because they have a tendency to mold, gave them new sugar water, and closed up the hives.
So there you have it. Two beehives, hard at work. Until next weekend...
1 comment:
Seeing how this is done is really interesting.
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