Up and running!

Both hives are doing well: each has a fat healthy laying queen! In just 12 days these hives were busy spinning out new comb, storing up food and the queens trying to find places to lay. On my second inspection, on Easter Sunday, both hives had 3 frames of capped worker brood in tight patterns. Boris has started spinning comb on 9 of 10 frames, and Natasha has spun on 8 of 10. Natasha has spun less comb, but was the larger of the 2 packages, so it has more bees. Natasha, though, is backfilling less, allowing the queen to lay more eggs than Boris. Both were at 60% drawn out in combs overall. Both were up and running!

Okay, time for some "bee porn". These are shots taken from my first inspection on April 13.

This is how my hives looked after my first inspection.

A new friend of ours, Celeste, came over to visit on Easter Sunday. It was her first experience in bees. She really dug it. I made Celeste bee photographer for the day. She did great! We had fun, taking our time, jotting down notes, talking about what was going on, me almost accidentally breaking off a new comb by holding the frame incorrectly (I gently returned it to its rightful place and the bees will repair the damage), us finding both queens, and looking for eggs and brood. 

Before we opened up the hives, I noticed that Boris' traffic was real congested with the one small opening from the entrance reducer. I happen to like my 3-hole homemade reducers, and Natasha was doing great with hers, so I replaced the store-bought reducer on Boris with my 3-hole garden variety.

One of the things I'm doing differently this year is staying more organized in and out of the field. As I started letting the bees know I was coming in with a few puffs of smoke, I opened my "Bee Box," an old tool box that has everything in it I may need whether in my yard or on a swarm call. It includes a pocket notepad and pencil. I'm collecting data and entering it into a spreadsheet that auto-generates charts, so I can visually see how my hives are doing throughout the year and skipping having to talk endlessly about beekeeping minutiae on this blog. Which means, I get to post more fun stuff like pictures and drawings (to come). :-) As you can tell, I was tickled to see that they'd started drawing comb out on one of the end frames. I know, it's little, but it's a start!

Then Celeste and I had a grand time inspecting and looking for eggs, brood and the queens. My ridiculously slow pace of taking notes has to improve. But I told Celeste going in we were taking our own sweet time. Why not? I've missed having bees in the back yard! It's time to hang out with the bees. Another wonderful Easter surprise was that for the first time when I felt the gentle wisp of a bee crawling on my hand, I didn't flinch or try to blow it out of the way, but just let her go. She did. And know what? I felt great! Really a sweet, sweet sensation. She was so gentle, and after goofing up and partially breaking one of their combs I realized I should take a lesson from the girls and be just as gentle as they were being with me. I've been waiting to get rid of my automatic "flinch response" to feeling an insect touch my skin, and after 4 years I think it's finally happening. Small victories, day by day, you know? Here are shots from the Boris inspection (thanks, Celeste!). BTW, do not believe those who say you MUST use foundation to get bees to draw comb. Poppycock!

All in all, Boris is coming great! She's drawing out the equivalent of 20% of a deep frame of new comb each day. Remember, this is a package of bees, and the new work force hasn't hatched yet. Soon they will be, but until then, with each day bees age and eventually die. Boris, though, had very little pollen stored. With a limited work force, instead of making them forage for pollen I gave them a small pollen patty made with some of last year's honey and a pollen substitute. I put a two-inch shim on top, and then the feeder on top of that so the bees could get to the pollen patty. (They gobbled up the patty in a couple days.)

I buttoned up Boris with a half gallon of 1:1 syrup. They've consumed quite a bit, but were back-filling the combs with it. I was relieved to see that they've opened up cells for the queen to lay in. I saw 3 frames with capped brood on Boris. She's preferring to lay in the brand new comb, I realized. The nectar flow has begun in Charlotte, thanks to info I've received from my bee buddy and former MeckBees president George McAllister. He weighs his hives, and though slow and steady, his hives are gaining weight daily (when it's not raining). Both hives have eaten less syrup in recent days. Natasha has really slowed down eating the syrup, so I didn't give her any. Onto the inspection of Natasha. It's a bigger colony, but has drawn less comb than the smaller Boris. Weird, right? Also interesting was that she had more capped brood and eggs in her combs than Boris. They're each ahead of one another in different categories. It'll be interesting to see how these colonies develop. The partial combs I'd given Natasha had all been secured to the sides, so she's buttoning down her hatches.

And lo and behold, Celeste was able to snap a quick photo of the queen. The white mark on her makes it easy! Also I find interesting that Natasha is working fewer frames of comb, preferring to draw more out on a single frame instead of more frames of smaller combs. Whatever works, is what I say. And she, too, had started another one that had been untouched just a few days prior. All in all, this was one happy beekeeper at Easter! :-)