The beekeeping continues. I’m a little late in reporting on last weekend’s hive visit because I visited again today, Memorial Day. Today’s visit warrants its own story, so you’ll have to wait until tomorrow for that. In the meantime, let me tell you about last week’s visit.

Laury and I double-teamed again and inspected my hive, then Laury’s hive. Being new at this, it’s wonderful to be able to see how the two hives progress and compare. The moral support is invaluable as well.

Inside my hive, there was lots of capped brood, pollen, honey, and I saw my queen again. The only unexpected sight was a couple of supercedure cells. These mean the bees might be thinking about replacing their queen. I wasn’t sure what to do, but after consulting with Nancy, she said not to worry and just to remove these cells. She felt they were “just practicing”. I’m not sure what that meant, but that’s what I did.

At Laury’s, everything looks great! She also has plenty of capped brood, pollen and honey, though we haven’t seen her queen.

The frames in both hives are filling up nicely, but not quite enough to add the next box of frames. Maybe next week. In the meantime, inside the capped brood, the next round of bees continue to develop. The first of them should be hatching during the week. Until then…

Even though I could probably do it every day, everyone recommends that I only open and inspect the hive once a week. I was so excited when Sunday came around, and I allowed myself to peek. This was the first time I was “on my own” though I wasn’t truly alone. Howard was there for moral support AND photography duty. He’s doing a marvelous job of staying brave, given that he was petrified when I announced my intention of starting the hive.

I started with a little smoke to calm them down.

Then I lifted off the top box and feeder, and took a peek at the frames. The bees are very busy. The queen is doing a good job laying eggs. This time, I could see eggs growing into larvae (see the little white crescents in the cells). There was also capped brood, where the larvae were pupating and should hatch into baby bees twelve days after capping. I don’t know if I’ll see baby bees next week, but soon after!

After an inspection of all the frames, I could see that the bees have drawn comb on about five of the frames, and two or three have brood. Then, I moved the frames back together and replaced the one I removed to make space to maneuver.

Everything went back on, just the way it came off. The hive is buttoned up tight until next week.

I amazed how much I enjoy standing nearby and watching the bees come and go. They are very active, but I don’t know where they go. I hope that they are enjoying the flowers in my garden, but the only creatures I spot seem to be the bumblebees.