Today we finally had a break in the weather and our timetable that allowed us to check on the hives and to check if the Queens had been released from their cages! It had been 5 days since we had put the Queens into the hives!
Thankfully yes, both Queens had been released from the cages. The worker bees had eaten through the marshmallows and the Queens were no longer in the cages, so we removed the cages and let the few bees that were walking about inside the cages, back into the hives....then we quickly closed up the hives again as it was cold and damp. We are still having such horrible weather here.
Both hives look to be doing really well...bees look to be well, busy building comb wile the weather is bad. One feeder is empty so I will refill that tomorrow - one has a little syrup left in it but I will top that up tomorrow too. The bees can't get out at the moment as the weather is just so bad.
We will leave the hives alone now for a week or two and then do an inspection and see for eggs and larvae. Hopefully then there will be signs that t he Queens are doing well and have been accepted by the hives and both hives will be doing good!
When we took out one of the cages - from Flora, we found it was covered in burr comb! Burr comb is comb the bees have built anywhere OTHER than on the frames - ie comb built in the WRONG place ;) Isn't it beautiful? Howe clever of them to build this amazing comb so fast!!!! :) On the Queens cage since Thursday night :) Like a gift for their new Queen :)
Susannah is taking it to school tomorrow to show her teacher and her class :)
2 comments:
That is beautiful. Are you going to keep it? Will it last outside the hive...........I assume its just beeswax? so it will last?
You can melt it down and use the wax for all kinds of things from home made lip balms to polish for the home....and it will keep, but in it's present form it tends t dry up and just crumble away really quickly so it isn't easy to keep like this at all. It's such a shame as it would be lovely to keep some like this. There may be ways to but the pieces we've kept so far have all dried and crumbled.
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