beginner bee luck!

beginner bee luck!

May 30, 2010, 10:29 am
Filed under: bees | Tags: 8 frame hive, bees, capped brood, queen, smoker

Ok at long last we opened up the hives to take a look. We knew we needed to do it– as one of the hives was making some crazy burr comb up above the frames– but we hadn’t tried the smoker and hadn’t inspected the bees. But they’d filled up their first storey and we needed to add another level. SO…this morning, we fired up the smoker and took a look!

doode adding wood shavings to the smoker

and it makes smoke!

the burr comb

While we had the hives open, I wanted to lift some frames to see what was going on. We had never checked to see the queen, we just removed the empty queen cages and assumed everything was ok. I pulled one outside frame to try it. Cool. Then I pulled the second frame in–it had more activity. And voilà there she was!

queen has blue dot near my thumb

Can we go for double stroke of good luck? Here I am pulling from the second hive–Louis–the one with the burr comb.

concentrating!

i look like michelin man!

there she is! see the blue dot?

Somehow we managed to pull the frames with the queen. Must be beginner bee luck.

This frame shows a bunch of different bee activities. I’m not quite sure if it looks good or what. This frame is from the least developed part of the hive, so i think it’s ok. Looks like capped brood on the right side there. Some other stuff elsewhere. Good news is–the hives seem to be progressing well! It was easy to do, quick too. We put a second storey on, replaced their feeders and closed them up. There were a few ants in Louis but not too many. And none present in Stelle. So that’s good.

How do you like our nifty inspector jackets?!

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