We Have Eggs!

Purchased a new camera and it's frustrating to have come out of the apiary with blurry photos! I hope it is just my technique as I get used to using a new camera. But I'm super excited to report that both queens are laying!

Catherine Queen

The Catherine hive is about a day or two ahead of the Alexandria have since she was out of the cage sooner. I also had alternated some empty frames between the drawn ones last time and they're going gang-busters drawing them out.

Larvae in the Catherine Hive

The bees are busy storing the syrup so there isn't much room for the queen to lay right now but I was happy to find a small patch of larvae. There are nearly 8 drawn frames so added the second box to ensure they have plenty of room to grow. Will check on them in a couple weeks but until them I'll keep the feed on. They still had half a gallon left so they've slowed down slightly in their consumption of it.

Eggs in the Alexandra Hive

It was easy to spot the eggs in the Alexandra hive but also noted that the bees are filling much of the cells with syrup just as in the other hive, so added alternate empty frames between the drawn comb to get these bees busy drawing them out. It's really evident at this point how the hive is behind the other but I know they'll even out soon enough. The queen isn't as dark as the other but she's still quite lovely!

Alexandra Queen

Will check on their progress later in the week to see if they've drawn out the frames are are ready for another box.

First Inspection of 2015

The bees have been busy taking just over a half gallon of syrup a day so have been busy bees! Checked in to ensure the queens were released and it's a good thing I did as the bees were busy building burr comb in the space where a frame is removed to accommodate the queen cage. Since it is after work and getting towards dusk, I placed the removed comb at the entrance of the hive so the bees could walk back in for the night.

Catherine Queen

The Catherine Queen is lovely and dark, but still rather small. She had already made her way out of the hive but I didn't bother looking for eggs just yet. (The light is bad this time of day to see them....)

Alexandra Queen

The Alexandra Queen needed a bit of assistance to get our of her cage and what a difference that makes in the disposition of a hive! The Alexandra hive was so docile I could have been in them with out gloves or veil, even when digging round to extract the burr comb. But the Catherine hive was a bit fiesty! Those bees are ready to defend their home and their queen. I'll leave them to do their thing and check in on them in a few days, hoping to find brood. I'll need to keep feeding them most of the summer until they build up a honey super full to get them through the winter, but they seem to be on their way!

New Hives for 2015

Newly installed hives

I'm surprised at how excited I am that the bees have finally arrived! The timing is later in the spring than I had hoped but I'm confident we'll be able to build up enough food stores through constant feeding till fall that they'll make it through the winter. I am able to provide each new hive with 5+ frames of comb already drawn out so that they're not starting completely from scratch!

They are Russian queens again with one very being dark and the other mostly dark, which is one characteristic I enjoy with the Russian bees.

Sugared bees

Since this is later in the season for installing bees, I am feeding fumagillin b for the first two gallons of syrup as a best practice against noseama.  I also took the precaution of sugaring for varroa mites, sifting 10X powdered sugar over the bees which allows for them to remove the mites as they clean off the sugar. They look like ghost-bees when covered with sugar. I had temporarily inserted a bottom board to check the amount of mites present but was hard pressed to find one. That's a good sign the bees came from strong hives.

I'll leave them to do their thing for a few days before checking to see if the queen has been released. I enjoyed watching them them as they got right down to taking orientation flights. I'm so glad to have bees back in the yard again!