The bees have been around for two weeks, so it is time for a check. We don't have any reason to think that they are in any trouble, but we have not looked in since the queen was released and wanted to make sure everyone was doing their jobs.
Today was a great day for bee-peaking. It was warm (70d) and the dandelions started to appear a couple days ago (when dandelions come up you can stop feeding bees sugar water). Kerstin took his time smoking the bees, which paid off. He puffed a few clouds under the lid and then kept the lid on for 30 seconds. when he took the lid off all the bees were down inside the frames being mellow.
We pulled out an outer frame first, which had some bees on it, but no work was being done.
The frames in the middle had the action. There are 10 frames in the hive with 2 sides per-frame. I would say that the middle five frames (10 sides) had a good amount of work done to them and were full of drawn comb, caped brood, honey and pollen. The outer frames (2 on each side) were pretty empty, but this is what the book said we could expect, so we were happy to see it.
We checked to make sure the queen was laying, and managed to see some larva in the comb. Everything looked legitimate so we put the frames back in a hurry. In hindsight we should have examined more and made some notes.
After the lid was put on I wanted to get another picture. The bees had already started coming to the frame-tops... the smoke was wearing off
Today was a great day for bee-peaking. It was warm (70d) and the dandelions started to appear a couple days ago (when dandelions come up you can stop feeding bees sugar water). Kerstin took his time smoking the bees, which paid off. He puffed a few clouds under the lid and then kept the lid on for 30 seconds. when he took the lid off all the bees were down inside the frames being mellow.
We pulled out an outer frame first, which had some bees on it, but no work was being done.
The frames in the middle had the action. There are 10 frames in the hive with 2 sides per-frame. I would say that the middle five frames (10 sides) had a good amount of work done to them and were full of drawn comb, caped brood, honey and pollen. The outer frames (2 on each side) were pretty empty, but this is what the book said we could expect, so we were happy to see it.
We checked to make sure the queen was laying, and managed to see some larva in the comb. Everything looked legitimate so we put the frames back in a hurry. In hindsight we should have examined more and made some notes.
After the lid was put on I wanted to get another picture. The bees had already started coming to the frame-tops... the smoke was wearing off
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