Thursday I took a visit to the girls to see how they were doing. They were doing amazing, it was slightly chilly but considering we've had a good run of weather we couldn't not open them up for a look. They were busy going in and out, carrying pollen and other supplies. We have a National beehive and run it at a brood and a half (I'll do a post explaining the parts of a hive!). On our last visit we added back our queen excluder and a super for them to store the honey in (the excluder keeps the queen from laying eggs in the honey). Our hive currently lives in a friend's back garden out in the countryside behind the garden is open fields and marsh land, as well as some orchards not so far away, so it's a great spot for them.
When we looked at the super they've already drawn out multiple frames and are already filling them with honey- fingers crossed it will be a good honey flow this year. You can see in the picture below the glistening honey in the cells.
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You can see the honey in the cells, it will be a little while until this is ready as they cap the honey once the water content is low |
All the bees look healthy and they are doing really well. Our queen is a little elusive and although we didn't see her there is plenty of young larvae so she's definitely in there! When inspecting a hive it's great to see them going about their business. In the picture below you can see two bees near the bottom of the comb emerging! There's also a little larvae we disturbed!
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New-bees! |
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Here you can see their pollen stores, all the different colours are the different pollen from different flowers |
Every time we visit I will try and take more photos to help show you the hive working and what's what in that mysterious little box.
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