Good News About the Bees

Last week, I was able to check the bees and they are thriving beautifully.  I found queens in all of the hives and I found lots of eggs and forming brood.  I even have some capped brood!

The rain we've been having has made everything so muddy that I wasn't able to take photos while I worked.  I feared I couldn't lift up frames without sliding and falling or dropping them in the mud.  So, this picture is from last year's hive, which sadly didn't make it through the winter.  We had terribly cold weather this winter and the poor bees got so cold they couldn't move to their uneaten honey supplies.  They literally starve to death.

If you look into the middle of this frame, you'll see little gold things that look like Kix cereal all laid together.  That's capped brood and under each one of those caps is a forming baby bee.  The young bees will chew their way out when they are fully formed.   There is not much that is quite SO freaky as to see these little alien-like creatures coming up from their cells.

On a sad note, we heard from the beekeeper from whom we were purchasing our Russian bees.  He was almost in tears as he told me he had put feed patties on his hives and something in them was causing the brood to not emerge.  He would lose many of his hives and had to call all the people who had planned to purchase from him to tell them the bad news.  We're looking around and hoping to purchase some bees from for our back gardens.    

While honey lies in every flower, it takes a bee to get the honey out.


Don't Forget to Go to the Homestead Barn Hop today!