Guilfordbeekeepers.org

Mama angel again.
Today we went out so the kids could take their first peek into the hives and Jared could hive the nuc that he got from grandpa Wally. We have been watching the bees work and they stay so busy!!! Even during the cold weather they never did seem to slow down at all. I'll let the kids post tonight about all that they saw and ask their own questions but I thought I would go ahead and share just a little bit about today (so far, we still have to go see Jess's hive).

Jared's nuc went on into the hive like they had been planning a move for a long time. His bees seem to be okay for the most part (pretty aggressive), but we didn't see the queen at all even after looking over every frame. We also noticed that there was only just a little brood, no larvae, no eggs just a little bit of capped brood in a sort of scattered out pattern. Maybe the cold spell so quickly after being moved down here??? There seemed to be plenty of honey and pollen in there and the bees sure are plenty active. Not knowing what it "should" look like in there we decided to let the bees rest a bit and get used to their new home and take another peek in 5-7 days. Is that a good idea or is there something else we need to do??

Caleb's bees were in high gear!!! His hive is just chock full of eggs, larvae and brood. He was so very very tickled to get to see lots and lots of honey and pollen in there too and it really looked like his bees are about to run completely out of room! The brood pattern was AWESOME! very few drone cells and did I say LOTS of honey. We did notice some dried up looking little dead bee babies....is that chalkbrood?? They looked like they were frozen over with a white crust over them. There were only one or two of them on a few of the frames but we don't want to see it anymore either. That hive seems to be really strong and very very productive overall, just the one thing with a few little whited over dead bee babies.

Taeler's hive has us a little bit on the worried side. Her bees seem really busy but the brood pattern is very very scattered and there are lots of drone cells. We saw a little bit of larvae and a few bees hatching out. There is lots and lots of capped honey in her hive and lots of pollen in there too but there just didn't seem to be nearly as many bees in there as there are in either one of the boys hives and a abundance of drone bees. She is a little concerned that her queen is gone .... we looked and looked and looked and looked and can't find her. There are no queen cells though so if she is gone the rest of the hive must not know it. I think we just couldn't find her, but I am concerned about the laying pattern and the lack of eggs in the hive. It almost looked like a shotgun pattern of brood cells with lots of honey stashed in between them. We did find a couple of empty queen cells but don't know if they were already there or not.

The kids are going to spend some time looking some of this up and reading about it all as soon as we get back from looking at Jess's hive. I'm sure that they will want to post all about it then and ask a bunch of questions. I can't wait to read what y'all have to say myself.... I am feeling very dumb about it all right now but am determined to help the kids learn their way through this beekeeping thing.

That sounds wonderful. Don't be too worried about not finding the Queen. I couldn't find the queen in one of my hives either. There were so many bees that it was almost impossible. Remember that she has attendants. Their job is to protect her and they will hide her when you go in. I also had empty queen cells but they were from the past. Lots of eggs and larvae. So she WAS in there . Not too sure about the one with the scattered brood pattern. I will be anxious to see what the pros say. Congrats on the hives

Sounds like you did everything right. I would give them a week after this cold spell and look in on them again. The dead brood was probably frozen when the cluster became too small to cover them properly. The bees will clean them out and all should be fine. As for the bad pattern and lack of eggs, a week of 60+ weather may change that. Let us know about Jess's and check them again in a week. If bad comes to worse, we can raise a queen for each hive from the eggs in Caleb's hive. He does have the most productive hive, so that may not be a bad idea.

I guess the kids have decided to post tomorrow...... I have a bunch of really tired kids. After all the time of not being able to do much outside they went a little overboard today

Jessica's hive is INCREDIBLE!! The 2nd frame that we took out we were greeted by none other than the queen herself! Jess's queen is truly beautiful .... very large and smooth and WOWOWOWOW!! I think one of the kids took a picture while I was holding the frame trying to show Jess's little brothers the queen and a brand new bee eating it's way out of the cell. We also saw a near perfect laying pattern (according to what little we know about it all) and lots and lots of brood, larvae, eggs, honey and pollen. We watched her bees fight off a little small hive beetle .... that little bee had a huge crowd cheering it on in it's fight. Jessica's little brothers are now totally facinated with the bees too! Her mom is still a little scared though, she sat in a lawnchair all the way across the yard.

Wally, these kids are impressive with the hives. Every single one of them does what they need to do and if something is too heavy or difficult for them they bond together like something I've never seen. Funny you said that about raising queens from Caleb's bees....that was the first thing Caleb said too. Of course now they are all in love with Jessica's queen too. The plan is to take a look again in a week but so far we're all really tickled with what we've seen.

L&H, thanks bunches for the encouragement!!! The kids are so excited about this it's just not funny. I bet your boys are a hoot with your bees too!

>>>>Wally, these kids are impressive with the hives. Every single one of them does what they need to do and if something is too heavy or difficult for them they bond together like something I've never seen<<<<

Of course, They're my angels.