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?