Good morning, and here's yet another entry in the bee blog. In the last three weeks, I've had three visits. Sadly on visit 1 of them, I took my phone with me, which died just before visit 2. On visit 2, I brought my camera, and sadly it ran out of batteries. So I made up for it in this blog! Visit one (five in total counting terms) was on wednesday, as monday was a meeting and tuesday we had thunder and lightning. Not good for a bee inspection! That wednesday was lovely though, and the beelings had built up a good bit of pure white burr comb - very pretty but in need of scraping off as I'd turned the hive into a duplex. Well behaved bees and if I recall somewhere around 32 degrees? Maybe. Not sure on teh recollection.
The second or number six visit, the bees were tetchy. I had left a sugar syrup feeder there and there was still plenty in it, though the weather is getting decidedly dry. Still, there is dugout near by, and plenty of water. If I recall it was down around the 22 degrees. This was again, a monday.
The third or number 7 ..and where does the time go? Visit showed lots of activity around the hive entrance.
And if you look carefully on the photo below, you can see on little girl with pollen bags on her legs. Lots of guard bees mind you. Not sure why.
And in retrospect I should have realised this was a large contingent, though realistically I just assumed that meant a lot of activity. Maybe it still does?
When opening up the top layer. You can see some pure white gorgeous burr comb. The last lot I scraped off was the size of an egg and i'd put it in the car to show people but I left it there the next day and it melted. Yes the car gets hot enough for that. As you can see they are starting to occupy this level. That's good!
And these were some of the front frames. As you can see, a nice brood pattern, some white larva scattered in there in between the tan capped cells, a little burr comb on the edges, with what might be capped brood or honey in the left hand bottom corner.
The fact the brood comb is so densely packed is a sign of a good laying queen so i'm quite happy with it. I put these frames in two and a half weeks ago and i've already got at least one comb full, plus stuff on other combs. That's a few hundred more bees to come.
And this is the other side. They will build this up to but it takes about seven or eight pounds of honey to make a pound of wax, and about 25-35 pound of nectar to make seven-eight pounds of honey. So, hard working bees!
The little coloured dots in this frame are a bit further away from the sugar container, and the frame with all the brood was above the originally heavily occupied frames. My guess is the queen moved up. But in this frame, what you're looking at is four cells of pollen.
And a few pictures of the well used feeder. I didn't think to top it up this week, for reasons I'll get into....but it looks fairly empty, or at least partially empty.
It does make a nice reflective surface for some bees to cling onto, and if you look further down you can see some more burr comb.
and the other side of the feeder has some very nice capped brood too. Well done HRH!
I figure that colour difference is the difference between nectar/honey base comb, the yellow stuff, and sugarwater based stuff (the white stuff). That was both from cleanup by they way. Also, comb gets darker as it gets chewed up and reused by the bees.
Around now I noticed a lot of bees flying around but I didn't think anyting of it. Lots of buzzing too, but bees buzz right?
And this is really a gorgeous brood pattern, with a little honey around the edges to feed them.
Well, it would be honey if i wasn't feeding them extra sugar water. They're a first year hive, I figure they need all the help they can get. The white stuff over the cells is where they've got the water down to 18% and consider it 'honey' and cap it.
It's what they use to feed the baby bees in there, aka the brood. A little burr comb on this one.
And clean cells,...well, some of them have larva in it if you blow it up.
And a bit sharper of the same. It's hard to get pictures when you try and work fast and you're photographing one handed!
More sugar syrup being capped. Still no Queen spotted for this visit. Or eggs. I wasn't going to take off the veil though, I had a lot of bees buzzing around and a few getting quite loud into my ears (this should have been a warning to me) and butting into the veil.
And then the ground story. As you can tell they still heavily occupy the front six combs but they're moving back.
I started at the back. Some nectar, some capped 'honey'
And this little girl climbing on the back most comb
There she is, with pollen bags! Busy bee!
And this is the fourth from the back comb. As youc an see, more capped stuff, more stuff being built up. Busy. The frames gets slippy too with all the wax, maybe next time I'll try and bring my frame gripper thingy? I didn't because I'd neglected to wash it after I put some leftover wax on it last time and it melted on it.
Still no sight of a Queen but there was a cluster of bees attending something odd. I didn't get a good look and this picture isn't good enough to blow it up. I'm now wondering if it was an insect or something?
Some of the stuff at the bottom...is that queen cell there? It shouldn't be, that'd be a swarm cell from positioning and swarming really only happens if htey don't have enough space. And we know they have plenty of space, It could be a drone cell? I saw some of those too...I don't really know. But as you can see, more capped and filled brood. Queen is doing well! Even if I can't find her and couldn't see anyeggs in the light. Strong sunlight really does help. The bullet shaped cells on the frame are definitely drone brood, the drones or boy bees being slightly bigger.
I don't know if I damaged this cell or it was just not covered well, or something else did (bald brood?) but youc an see the developing pinkish bee in here. The pink is the pre dark colour for the eyes.
And another shot of the same. It's drone brood so not depleting the workforce.
And youc an see pollen and larve near by. And how dark that comb is. This is a frame from my nuc, and probably an older one I'm guessing.
The plastic frame...as youc an see there are four bees here sharing nectar. Aww!
And as there was burr comb on top, I had to scrape some off the last three. This is where I ran into trouble. I wonder if that agitated them.......
As this is around the time a bee girl landed on me. Didn't do anything, just walked around as calm as she could.
And a bit more.
And I think it was a different one, either that she was scouting out a spot, but as I took the third comb out, something stung me. I didn't drop the comb, and I put it back, after a moment, and took a moment to consider how to scrape the stinger out. There was a venom sac on it so I was sure I was stung, and I ended up using my hive tool, but it took me some seconds. I believe venom keeps pumping in, as now, 2 days later, that pinky is still the sorest of the stings I got. Not very mind you at this point but it did smart a bit! I tried to smoke it and put on my gloves to help hide the alarm pheremone.
And at this point I found my smoker hardly working. Then three bees got me on the other hand, where I had brushed at the right one. Maybe pheremone transferred? I don't know. Two bites here, next to it, but no venom sac's so i'm not sure if I got stung twice by teh same one, or twice by different ones.
My pinkie now swelling up
And the third bite. I don't react much do I? These were taken at the car by teh way. At this point I took a glance at the last comb, backed away quickly in between getting stung and that, backed away after looking, then very quickly lifted the second box on, backed away for a minute, then put the lid on quickly, and lastly poked it into place with my hive tool. Then I walked out. My smoker still failing me. I need to figure out how to keep it going better.
My hive is in the distance there past the horses, so ..maybe they were bothered by horses? I doubt it though. Not sure what else could have bothered them.
It sure jacked up my heartrate though!
It was twenty five degrees according to teh car dash, around 6pm to 7pm as I can't really get out earlier than that.
And overcast and very humid.
A bit of redness but not a bad reaction really.
I know I shouldn't really go after five, or overcast or before a storm (dropping barometric pressure) but I'm also limited as to when I can go. I'm not sure how to best handle these visits in these conditions, but I need to try and be gentler I think. I wasn't particularly rough mind you...but maybe less photo taking.
I also debate talking to my GP about an epi pen. I'm not allergic, as proven, but you never known when an allergy can change. Or when a bystander might be allergic.
Yesterday the stings itched, well the double one and the one on my pinky did. The one on the ring finger? Barely felt.
Today? a lot of itching, still some swelling on the pinky. But its less of a hard swelling. And some very tiny blisters where the entry pricks were.
Thoughts?
