Charlie

Saturday 8 May 2010.  I'm going to start this blog entry with a quick hello to a 6 year old young lady from England named Charlie, who I understand, likes to read about my bees.  I hope to one day meet her.  Maybe if the bees allow me some honey at the end of their year, I can find a way to send her some of my first year honey.  Who knows, perhaps one day she'll become a beekeeper herself and save the bees or the world ... or convince her Mom and Dad to begin keeping bees.

The day here started with thunderstorms, and near continuous rain till about 2:30.  When it stopped and warmed up a bit, I saw some bee flight activity.  Now was the opportunity to check on them.  I probably took a bit of a chance by wearing only the hat and veil netting and gloves; but, successfully did the hive inspection without getting stung (still). For the future, I must store some pine cones and pine needles inside someplace to keep them dry - this is the fuel I use for the smoker.  The rain made it nearly impossible to start, and sure enough by the time I had finished the inspection, it had gone out . Overall they have started to draw some level of comb out on 8 of the 10 frames.  The 2 outermost frames (#1 and #10) really don't have much happening to them yet.  The outermost of the 8  (#2 and #9)are really just beginning to store pollen. You can see the bright yellow pollen stores here on frame #2.

I found the queen without any problem.  She really does not like the light of day and was quickly scurrying to get to the other side - I did capture her here (blue dot).  Notice her size in comparison to the other bees - about 20 - 25% bigger than her female workers ... longer and fatter.  I don't think I see any drones here in this photo.

The top feeder is still being heavily used.  There is syrup still in it.  I probably should have topped it off; but, I didn't have any sugar syrup prepared because I thought it was going to rain all day and didn't really think I'd get inside the hive to check on them.  Tomorrow is supposed to be windy with gusts to 35 mph, certainly not a good day to be checking flying insects. Maybe I can quickly remove the top cover and pour some medicated feed in there.

I can really feel the weight difference now in the center most frames.  I can see that the 3 or 4 center most frames now have some capped cells.  I can also see that the queen is actively laying eggs - they look like tiny grains of white rice - very visible here in the photo below. 

I can also see where some have grown into quite large larvae - these are the ones that look like a large fat, white "C".  All these bees are nurse bees attending to the brood.

I think they are doing fine!