Time to update about the bees! They are doing great considering the weather we have been having. It has been so cold and wet.
Look how busy they are. You can see how they are always working. Either feeding the brood (babies), capping the brood, building the combs, gathering pollen and nectar, making honey for the colony to eat, cleaning the hive, taking out dead bees, guarding the hive from other insects and animals, scouting, and taking care of the queen by feeding her and cleaning her. Bees do not take sick days, they do not get vacations and they don't have a retirement plan. Young bees hatch, clean out their hole so the queen can re-use it, then they begin taking care of larva. The end of their life is spent doing the most risky jobs like going out to gather nectar. They work until they die and other bees drag their bodies out and drop them down into the grass. The entire bee life cycle is only about 6 weeks so it is crucial that the brood are cared for and hatch successfully.
Below is a neat picture even with the shadow partially blocking. If you look close you can see bees in all stages. Some larva, they look like white slimy worms low and to the left of the capped off area. Some eggs, they are white dots inside the open combs. And some capped, with pupa in them, those are the closed yellow combs. You can see some black frame at the bottom, that is what the frame looks like before they build their comb on it. All the yellow you see is what they have built. Is it amazing or what?
For extra credit can you find the queen below?
When the frames are packed in tight the way they are suppose to be the bees follow our design for building their comb on each frame. But if we leave too much space between frames as we did with the frame below they will start building outward. They also build on top of the frames and attach to the top of the box. So every time we lift the lid we break their comb they have been working on. Kind of sad. You can kind of see this in the very top picture.
Did you know: A queen bee can lay up to 3000 eggs a day at her peak?
I would love to come learn first hand about your bee's someday...I am a little fearful of bee's, but am fascinated by them!
ReplyDeleteJennifer, I would love for you to come over anytime. I am afraid of them too but I still look forward to opening the boxes because they are so fun to watch. You could keep a small hive right there in your neighborhood. Stephanie is putting on a demonstration for homeschoolers sometime this summer. Maybe you can come watch. She will talk about some of the types of hives that you leave more natural and don't intervene very often. You don't get as much honey but don't have to put much work into them either.
ReplyDeleteI would love that! I am so interested in your bees and your little farm. I want to learn all I can, and have my own little urban farm.
ReplyDeleteWow, it looks like they are doing very well. They are very busy. Hopefully it will warm to help in their productivity.
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