Hi all! Sorry for the delay. Had lots going on after our inspection on Friday and didn't have a chance to post!
The inspection was great. We had a couple other beekeepers with us to help inspect the five hives on the property. I had done my hive inspection myself so no pics from that unfortunately.
Tim, Sue and George were all involved with the rest of the hives so I can share a few pics from there.
First off, wow! My girls are working that 2nd brood box like crazy. A 3rd brood box will go on this week which will make my hive, a deep plus 2 medium brood boxes. That should get them thru the cold winter months. Victoria has been a laying fool! Her laying patterns are fantastic. All bunched together without much spacing. I could not be more pleased with her so far!
Tim has a great queen in his 2nd hive. Here is a great pattern from that hive.
Isn't that pretty? Honey stores outline the top and sides around the brood pattern. He was very happy with this hive.
He is checking out his queen's handy work.
We also opened his giant hive to add another honey super to the collection. He easily has 80 pounds of honey on it so far. It's really amazing!
A couple of girls were playing peek-a-boo from inside the honey super. They are just so dang cool. I've enjoyed this more than I can ever share.
Tim also met with another beekeeper a couple days ago who is grafting queens from his giant hive. They have grafted 80 queens from his queen's eggs. This is her 3rd year and she has built up an amazingly strong colony over and over. After 3 splits, she is still building at an amazing pace!
My understanding is this: they take 3 day old eggs and place them in artificial queen cups. They put these cups in a Nuc box with nurse bees who feed them the royal jelly. 16 days later they have queens. There is more to it than that, but I'm not experienced enough to talk too much about it. Here is a quick shot of the rearing frame.
One of the Nucs had overzealous bees as well. They had built a "heart" out of wax comb. It's pretty incredible as well. I think they do incredible things all the time though.
Hopefully, I'll have more pics of my hive for you in a few days. This was a fun inspection with more of us playing in the hives. I'm sure it won't be the last time we collaborate.
Until next time, bee kind! 🐝
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