I picked up two fat & happy nucs on Monday 4.11.11. I was planning to check on them after they had been here a week, but got a little worried on Sunday because there was so much activity outside one of the hives. I was afraid they were either being robbed or (heaven forbid) swarming. So i suited up to check on them & here is what I found.
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| This is the one i was worried about, but I guess it was just a traffic jam at the front door. |
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| I popped the entrance reducer in quick when i thought they were being robbed. I removed it when I realized they were just warm & happy girls enjoying a sunny day with lots of flowers in bloom; most of them have pollen. |
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| You can see the 5 frames that made up the nuc versus the 5 plastic frames I had. The good news is they are moving onto the new frames & drawing comb. |
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| Newly drawn comb |
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| Capped brood cells & right next to that pollen being packed in to empty cells. |
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| There are some drone cells on this frame, and again you can see pollen. |
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| Close up of the drone cells, and I do believe that is one of the boys in the lower left corner. Larger body & big eyes. |
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| This is a frame I pulled out of the second hive. A little more disturbing because those three large cells are supersedure cells. Which means the bees were trying to replace the queen for one reason or another. Not a good sign. |
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| Same frame flipped upside down. You can see the cells are empty which means three new queens hatched out. Hopefully one of them survived!! Also note, pretty much no capped brood on this frame :( |
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See the little larvae!!! Aren't they cute!!
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The second hive was really "pissy". I actually got stung through my gloves (actually my Dad's gloves I inherited. I inherited his veil, too. Most girls are excited about inheriting their Mom's veil :)). I have not been stung by a bee in about 15 years, so it was probably good to be reminded its not so bad.
Because they were extra agitated, I did not pull all the frames to check for brood & signs of a happy monarch. I put the hive back together & left them alone. But having no queen can make them grumpy.
I think, based on the fact that this was one of the last pics i took, that this frame came out of the hive with the empty queen cells. But I am not certain. If it did, then I think there must be a queen? or maybe not....eggs take 3 days to develop in to a larva, then larva take 6 days to develop into pupa (which is when the get "capped"). When i took the pictures, it had been 6 days since i brought the nucs home....hmm...well, I am going to check both hives again this weekend to see how they are doing. But so far so good!!
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| ok, this picture I actually took on Friday. This bee appears to have deformed wing virus. Not totally unexpected; I think it is pretty much ubiquitous, along with the varroa mites that help spread it. But since both have been associated with colony collapse disorder, I will be monitoring closely. |
