I've been a little behind with updating Sky Hive's blog lately. Life has been a little crazy! Nonetheless, I have been able to preform hive inspections but I haven't been able to blog about them. So let's get started!
Number 3 - May 16, 2014
Inspection #3 was very exciting. As I previously discussed in Inspection #2, I saw a lot of newly capped brood cells, several stages of developing larvae, and many eggs. With inspection #3, I was able to see newly hatched worker bees that had actually been produced from my queen! It was awesome! The newly hatched bees are a lot more pale. They are a light golden brown color. Clearly, a lot different compared to the bees that came with the package.
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| Newly emerging worker bees walking across the frames of Sky Hive for the first time. Lightly golden brown, compared to their hive sisters who are darker colored. |
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| Inspection #3 was also the first time I saw honey. This frame was almost completely covered with pollen, which is contained primarily in the center and honey, which is primarily contained on the edges of the frame with white wax caps. |
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| On this frame, you can see a few raised caps. These raised caps contain drone brood, or male bees. Male bees, or drone bees are most commonly seen within hives during the Spring and Summer seasons for mating purposes. During the Fall and Winter most hives will not contain any drones. |
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| Another frame from the bottom most deep super. This frame contains a lot of capped brood with some cells containing larvae and eggs. Some cells are even empty, which most likely explains why I'm starting to see new worker bees. Happy birthday to all the new girls! |
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| Another capped brood frame with a few new worker bees among their older hive sisters. |
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| A better picture of the newly emerging worker bees. Note how lightly colored they are compared to their older sisters. |
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| When performing this inspection, I noticed the girls had drawn out almost six of the ten frames within the first deep super. Most beekeeping experts suggest you add a second deep super when the bees have drawn out at least seven of the ten frames. I went ahead and added the second deep super just to be safe. I figured it wouldn't hurt. |
Inspection #4 - May 26, 2014
I'm not gonna lie, this inspection was a little bit harder to complete. Mostly, because there were about triple the amount of bees from last time which made me slightly nervous. In fact, I didn't even make it through the entire inspection. I was moving a lot slower compared to previous inspections and was cautiously replacing frames. With my luck, I was nervous about accidentally crushing the queen (I didn't)! The girls even started bumping my veil about half way through the bottom most deep super, probably because I was taking too long and pushing their patience. So I took their hint and closed up shop for the day. But, I was able to see that the queen had made her way up into the second deep super at some point. The worker bees had drawn out only a couple of frames in the newly installed second deep super, but surprisingly enough, the queen has already began laying eggs on the frames. I am very lucky to have obtained a well producing queen!
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| One of the frames I pulled from the second deep super. Notice how new the honeycomb is. You can tell this by how white and untouched it is. After even a couple of weeks, a typical frame with comb will be slightly discolored and lightly brown. from bees walking across the frame; just the normal wear and tear. You can't really see them in this picture, but there were also eggs laid in these cells. |
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| A frame containing pollen (the darker colored cells without wax coverings) and honey which is to the far left of the picture (the white wax covered cells), notice how you can even see a little golden color under the wax coverings. Yes, that would be honey!! |
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| Looking down into the first (most bottom) deep super. You can see a little but of burr comb coming out from some frames. |
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| Looking down into the first deep super. Look #2! There were so many bees. It was slightly overwhelming! |
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| This photo reveals a queen cup. Of course, being a new beekeeper I panicked. However, I was told a queen cup is nothing to worry about as long as the queen cup doesn't turn into a queen cell or a capped queen cell. The queen cup is nothing but the bees being prepared. In rare case that the current queen become sick, injured, or even if the colony feels overwhelmed or over populated, they are able to quickly produce a queen of their own. Some people destroy the queen cups to prevent swarming or supercedure. However, I just left the queen cup alone. I will let nature do it's thing. But, for now I will simply just cross my fingers and hope my colony doesn't swarm! This photo also shows some awesome close ups of larvae and pollen! Simply amazing. |
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| A close up on a frame containing capped worker brood and larvae. Looking good, ladies! |
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| Capped worker brood. The newly emerged worker bees from inspection #3 don't look so young anymore. However, you can clearly see how different they look from their older worker sisters. |
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| Some of the ladies hanging outside on a frame during the inspection. I bought this handy frame holder to use during inspections. It holds only a few frames, however it makes it easier to manipulate frames inside each deep super. |
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| Looking down into the first deep super. The hive population has certainly increased, which made it a little harder for this novice beekeeper to complete this inspection. But, with more practice comes skill perfection. |
During inspection #4, I also removed the entrance reducer. I posted a comment on a couple of the Beekeeping groups on Facebook looking for some advice on entrance reducer removal. After reading a few responses, I decided to go ahead and remove it. We will see how it goes!
~Nick
