On May fourth, seven days after our last hive check, we checked our hives again. We try to check our hives every seven to ten days.
Here I am looking at a frame I pulled from my hive. The frames were built out and we saw eggs.
This is another frame in my hive. This frame had nectar at the top and eggs in the middle.
This frame had lots of pollen on it. The pollen is the orange and red stuff. Bees collect pollen from flowers. They use the pollen to feed the larvae and brood.
You can see the areas the bees have not built out on the outside of the frame. They eventually filled these spaces out.
This frame from Bethany’s hive had capped larvae on it. These larvae are between nine and twenty-one days old.
We spotted Bethany’s queen on this frame. Can you spot her?
If you thought the queen was the long, dark bee than you were correct!
In this picture, the queen is laying an egg in the cell. When the queen lays an egg, she finds an empty cell and inspects it to see if it is clean and ready for an egg. If the cell is acceptable she than backs her abdomen into the cell and lays an egg. It is a very rare thing to see.
Here is Olivia beginning her hive inspection.
Olivia is an egg spotter and had no problem finding the eggs.
This picture shows nectar and pollen. The bees are busy filling up these cells.
Here we are looking Olivia’s shoulder to see what she sees.
This is a frame that is just full of capped brood.
Here we are bushing all the frames back together to prepare to close up the hive.
I was very happy to see that our hives had eggs, capped brood, and plenty of resources after such a short period of time.
Abigail