Week 2

Many things have happened since the last post. Firstly, I am much calmer and less concerned about the state of the bees than I was in the last report and here is the reason why. I had mentioned that I wasn't going to open the hive for 48 hours but after talking to some senior members at my beekeeping club I decided that, given the life cycle of the bees and the time it takes eggs to develop it would be best to wait at least five days. Due to weather it took me a little longer to get into the hive but I finally did on Sunday the 18th. There was a lot of comb drawn out and many bees moving about but I didn't see any sign of the queen. How was I to know everything was o.k.? Well I called a friend, Ben Crawley, from the WCBA for help on what to look for. I got way more help than was expected. When he found out I was only about 20 minutes away from his location he told me he would be there in 30 minutes. Awesome. I now had someone who knew what to look for. He arrived and we went back into the hive. He found eggs in the center frames. He showed me what to look for and I could see them too. Yippee the Queen lives. I was relieved. I closed the hive and waited.

Due to weather and daylight I waited longer than I had planned but I finally got back in the hive on Sunday the 25th. I found lots of capped cells; this is a sign of pupating larva. I also found lots of larva yet to be capped (the pre-pupa stage). The brood is centrally located and densely packed. No spotty egg laying. She's going strong. There was also a good storage of nectar across the top of the frames and some pollen stores out toward the edge. They are yet to draw out all the frames into comb but are well on their way. By next week I should be able to put the second hive body on top with more frames. More on that later.