Hive visit

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.

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!

New-bees!

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.