The Bee Frame

this picture shows a frame nicely drawn-out with honeycomb. there is only a small area in the left corner where there is still just foundation without comb on it. the girls have done a good job with this frame and soon they will begin to fill it. there is a pattern for what they put where on the frame, and the picture below shows the pattern.

in the picture below, lawrence is holding a frame from jamaica's hive. you can see the yellow capped honey in the upper left corner and there was also some in the upper right corner. the amber colored cells in an oval in the middle are jamaica's daughters (capped brood) which will need several more days to hatch out as baby worker bees. there was nectar and pollen in the cells at the sides. there were no drone cells or queen cups on this frame.

update 2

rosie

this morning, we visited the nursery hives for their 10-day checkup. we spotted rosie in the bottom brood chamber, doing her thing. the video above is rosie laying eggs, although we took it on a previous occasion. rosie has a fair number of hatched out cells to lay eggs in in the bottom box and she has even loaded up one of the outside frames with brood. the bottom frames looked a bit dry, but when we inspected the upper box, we found a good supply of nectar and honey in the outside frames and plenty of brood in the center frames, although there are still 2 or 3 frames that haven't been drawn out completely (or at all) in this box. this hive has had a honey super on it right along (why, i don't know). virtually all of the super frames are drawn out with comb, but there is nothing in it right now. lawrence says it is good to have a drawn out super (it's our only one), but i would like to see them finish their second story this summer. this is certainly our weakest hive, what with it being the remnants of the swarm and having had a failed supersedure queen (poor bellarosa) and now, finally a wonderful queen, rosie. we will keep feeding them until they have completed their work on the upper deep. when you look through this hive, you can really see how few bees there are in it right now, compared to our other hives. they just need a little tlc.

bianca

last stop on our bee tour was a look through bianca's hive. this hive has always had a large population of bees and hasn't suffered through a swarm and the supersedure setbacks that rosie's hive has. once again, the bottom box has plenty of empty cells from hatching out and that is where we spotted bianca this morning. thankfully, she didn't try any of her acrobatic tricks on us today. lawrence remarked about the huge amount of propolis in this hive - everything you touch is heavily glued down or together, much more so than the other hives. i noticed that the workers in this hives are very large compared to our other colonies. i wonder why. anyways, there is plenty of nectar and honey in the outside frames and lots of brood in the center frames. the top deep has five frames fully packed with capped honey and only three frames have brood on them. we've had a honey super on this hive for awhile, but the bees are still ignoring it - no drawn out comb at all up there. maybe now that they've loaded up their third story (and the rest of the hive) they will start to do some work in the super. hope so! lawrence broke open a few capped honey cells pulling a heavy frame out, so we got to taste a bit of our own honey. it was really wonderful, almost a little spicy - maybe because of their propolis fetish?

updates

jamaica

it's been ten days since we were last in the hives and i was very curious to see what the girls have been up to. we looked at jamaica's hive first and discovered that it was very full indeed! She has brood on 7 of 8 frames in each deep and all of the frames except for 1 or 2 sides had beautifully drawn out honey comb, filled of course. we decided to do an addition to her house, and added a third deep. we sprayed the empty foundation on the frames with sugar syrup and we decided to start feeding them again, to give them a bit of help drawing out comb on the 8 empty frames. we're in a bit of a dry spell and there are signs that the nectar flow is dwindling.

astoria

in astoria's hive, the bottom deep had significant space due to brood hatching out. there are a ton of bees in this hive and we had quite the time trying to spot astoria with each of the frames absolutely loaded with bees. we finally found her in the second deep on a frame that wasn't completely packed with bees. we added a third deep to this hive about three weeks ago and they haven't done much in terms of drawing out comb in it. today, we saw that they have begun to draw out comb in the middle two frames, but there are 6 empty frames yet to be worked on. we're thinking of starting to feed this hive again, to encourage them to build comb for their third story. i think they need the extra room!

about smokers

one of the most difficult things that a beekeeper must master is how to get a smoker working really well. it's really quite an art. we use three materials in the smoker as you see in the photo above.  first is pine spills, followed by sumac blossoms, and good old oak leaves. the key is to start a fire low down in the smoker and then stuff it with your flammable materials, but not too much, as to suffocate the flame. it really takes quite the touch. when you get it going well, the smoker will last the whole time that you are in the hives. if you don't get it going well, you will be relighting the smoker over and over again. what a pain!  check out the video of lawrence getting one going!