Today we took the entire hive apart and did a complete hive inspection. we wanted to look to see if there was an active Queen. Look to check the entire hive was healthy and to see how much of the hive had store etc.
Basically the bees have cleared out all of the dead bees. There were a few that were trapped in one corner, so I cleaned those out for them. The bees had taken most of the honey although some of the frames still had plenty of honey stores in them. We took one frame of honey for ourselves (yum - see pictures in other post).
All the bees appear to be busy and very healthy and active. There is pollen, bee bread, and honey in most supers. The bottom super is where they are storing the new pollen that they are bringing in at the moment. we were very surprised to see the bees actively bring in a LOT of fresh pollen in already. The snow has only just thawed and there doesn't appear to be any pollen around yet but they are coming back laden with pollen from somewhere!!! Wonderful!!
In the second super, we were thrilled to check two frames and find eggs and larvae in all stages!!! This is a sure sign of an active Queen!!! We are thrilled! It also means we can do splits and split our hive into two!! this will also stop the bees from swarming!!
I am so glad our Queen is doing well!
We over wintered our bees successfully for our first winter, and our Queen survived too :) This means our entire first year as beekeepers has been a success :)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment