Had a pretty interesting inspection this morning. Bees were great except for one angry one. It buzzed my head, circled the girls, chased the wife, and then stung my father-in-law on the lip. Can it get better?

Hive N1 (Naomi) is still pretty far behind Hive A1 (Abi). Found a wax moth larva on a top bar but not in the hive. Inspected the hive for damage but found no other larva or damage. The following pictures should give you an idea of where they are. Also, notice my coverings for the bee frames from the nuc. This keeps the bees in and keeps the feel of a TBH.

I would like to see more activity inside this hive but think they will be ok. There are lots of bees flying. They aren’t bringing back as much pollen per bee, hardly any pollen. But they are doing something. They won’t take sugar syrup so they must be hitting the poplars. Also, some brown streaks on the front of the hive so I suspect Nosema.

 

Hive A1 is doing great. They have built out a whole bar and have two to three times as many bees flying as N1. They are bringing in tons of pollen today. Some bright yellow-orange but most of it was gray. Never seen gray pollen before. Also, they’ve started on a pure honey frame so that’s nice. Here’s a couple of pics:

 

All in all the bees are doing ok. I’m hopeful that N1 will pull through and start expanding.

Posted on May 17th, 2008 by John
Filed under: Beekeeping