First Hive (Bea):
Everything looked as it should in the supers. We switched a few frames about to get them to build them more evenly.
A nice photo of the developing brood here - you can see the larvae in the centre are being sealed over now they are grown to full size, the ones nearer the edge of the brood nest will be sealed up in a few more days.
We spotted a queen cup here, at the top of the frame. It's not swarming season now so probably just a harmless 'play cup', as they are sometimes called..
Second Hive (Charlie):
This hive needed another super put on. As you can see, we split the full frames equally with the new frames in between them.
Hopefully this will persuade them to build up all that empty foundation quickly.
I scrape these floors clean regularly so that I can check what's new each time.
Sure enough, here's a new beastie we've not found before. I've seen photographs before of wax moth larvae - this one must have slipped through the mesh floor onto my board as the bees were trying to kick it out of the hive. I popped it into a pot to look at more closely at home.
It looks just like the one in the book.
I'm glad my frames have never looked that filthy! Having finished with this larva I put it out on the bird table.
Not much change in the supers, they're building up the empty frames nicely though.
Similar situation in the brood box - they haven't started building up these end frames yet but the tops of all the frames are covered again. We scrape it off every time to stop it building up too much as the weeks pass.
Something looks suspect on this frame above...
... and shaking the bees off reveals some damage to the brood.
This is known as 'bald brood'. Some of the cell coverings have been partially removed before the larvae are ready to emerge and, although the pupae could develop fine, there is a much higher risk of them being damaged or infected, especially in the eyes. I think this has probably been caused by a wax moth larvae, nibbling at the wax.
This looked odd - there were two heads wiggling for ages, obviously drones trying to hatch out. It must be a tight fit as their bodies are so much larger than the worker bees'.
They squirmed around for so long that we finally gave up waiting for them to come out - I'm sure they'll manage it eventually!
The weeds are growing up fast now - I'll have to remember to come along one evening and hack these back a bit.
Everything looked very healthy in this hive. The queen was seen and there was an ideal range of brood in all stages, the stores are building up (though slowly) and the bees were very calm - they didn't even seem to notice we were there.
A good clear photograph of a new egg standing up in a chunk of brace comb. The three large capped cells contain drone bees and there is a large larva in a cell now ready to be sealed too.
Very cute photo - these bees aren't kissing though, they're sharing nectar. They pass nectar from one bee to another as one of the processes involved in making honey. Converting nectar into honey is a very complicated process and there are some parts of it which humans still do not fully understand. Complete scientific analyis of honey still has a tiny percentage which cannot yet be properly identified - I think I've seen it referred to as 'bee essence', though in lab reports it's usually called 'unidentifiable'!