Mama Bee and me
Mama bee & Me
Wow, what an exciting day today's hive checks were. I installed by bees over 26 days ago and the hives are buzzing! Hive #1 - Queen Vanessa's hive seems to be a little loud and active. I did use the smoker on the hive. I had to remove a little burl comb attached to the inner cover but not much. Queen Vanessa has been very busy and eggs and larva was seen was well as a Drone cell. Hive #2 - Queen Latifah hive was very quite and very busy! The first thing I notice that they are drawing comb very very well and I may have to add a second super this coming week. the second thing I noticed was the hive seemed to have more bees...which we have baby bees!!! The center frames had many new hatched bees and after watching the frame for a while I could tell which were new baby bees. They were fuzzy and their wings were more tightly wrapped. Queen Latifah was seen as new eggs and cells with larva. I pulled out one frame that had over a third plus of capped honey! I noticed a couple of Drone cells and removed little burl comb. I can't wait for this weekend check!!!
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Due to my daughter Trinity College graduation, I was not able to conduct my 2nd week hive check on the this past Saturday. I did how every as soon I got got home from a 20 hour drive from Minnesota with 8 people in out van; run out to the hives and make sure that they we okay. Which meant I peeked into the hives and everyone was all ready to go to sleep in the hives.
The next day, I made sure to suit up and check both hives properly. Needless to say that I was really excited to see what progress they had made in a week and a half. Both hives had mostly gone through the sugar syrup I had in the upper shallow, they had draw the comb down really good in both hives, but hive #1 is about a week behind due to the comb I had to remove. Both Queen were seen in the hives. The pattern of brood was nice tight and both eggs and larva were visible. As you can see by the picture below that the top of the frame is capped honey, followed by a band of orange-yellow pollen and below that capped yellow brood or baby bees! We saw several bees doing their "Bee Dance" to share what they had found outside the hive with their sisters. Watching their patterned dances in circles and figure eight was pretty cool. We also notice many "Pollen Jocks" (bees bring in pollen and yes, it from the Bee Movie) which are ALL girl bees bringing in bright orange-yellow pollen. As everything looked super and the hives are on schedule with not visual problems we closed them up and will check them again next weekend. Today, I finally got to open the hives for their first check to see what they have been doing in a week. Also we have named the hives as well. Cameron's hive (Hive #1) is Queen Vanessa. He came up with the name after watching "The Bee Movie" as the main human characters name is...Vanessa! My hive or Hive #2 is named Queen Latifah...no explanation is needed!
After suiting up my daughter Brittany and I opened Hive #1 only to find that I had forgotten to put the center frames back and that the girls had make beautiful burl comb patties which hung from the inner cover. Yes, though it was beautiful to see the comb had to be sadly removed. Queen Vanessa was located and after a long time searching I finally noticed eggs in the bottom of the cells! With this we closed up Hive #1 and continued to Hive #2. Hive #2 - Queen Latifah was found in great health and the presence eggs and pollen were seen. We did not take any pictures as everything looked great and hive was closed. After worrying all night about the girls, today is the day we install them into their new hives. I am both nervous and excited...i have spent the last several night reading and re-reading how to install the packages. So here we go...
Finally...after four long months the girls have arrived!!! All week we have been anticipating today. Since no one else would drive over an hour each way and needless to say with 30,000 buzzing bees in the car. Cameron and I had an awesome drive to Polson, MT to pick them up. He even watched "The Bee Movie" on the way down.
Picking them up was super easy as I had prepaid from the last January. Once in the car and on our was home, Cameron noticed a lonely bee on the outside trying to get in the cages with her sisters. Cameron never freaked out or got upset as she sometimes flew around the car only to landed back on the cages...instead he just giggled! Since by the time we arrived home was getting cool and windy we decided to install the girls tomorrow into their new homes. We so excited!!! |
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August 2015
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