Hive Notes

Started with Deborah this time. No queen was observed, and there was no evidence of fresh brood. We fed her, and hope that her queen is out on a mating flight. Next, we visited Cynthia. Now this is a really clean hive! All of the drawn-out comb is even and very beautiful. She is orderly and healthy. She is also quite compliant, showing us her queen on the second frame we drew from the hive body. We fed sugar water and pollen patties to both Cynthia and Deborah so that they can quickly build up more honeycomb and population. Beatrice was fussy. For a while, we thought she might be queenless because the girls were so grouchy. They weren't patient with us at all. However, we did spot a queen near the end of our session. Beatrice is busy drawing out her super frames. We fed her sugar water, too. Finally, we crossed the field to check on Aphrodite. She is our mother hive, and we have high hopes for a honey harvest soon. Not yet, we must be patient...but there are several super frames with capped honey! We have to wait until all the honey on a frame is capped before we can harvest. "Green" honey is not so good for you. It's amazing that the bees know exactly when stored nectar hits the right density, and that's when they cap the cells. Aphrodite is a messy hive. Crosscomb is all over the place, making it hard to move the frames and check on the bees. I thought I saw a mite on one bee's leg, but it moved before I could really check it out well. The rest of the hive seems quite hale. We observed the queen here, too.