Day #317 Successful Hive Inspection!

It’s amazing what a little sugar water will do for a starving colony. I’m not talking about how people run in the door and yell, “What’s for dinner? I’m starving!”

I’m talking about 60,000 bees too exhausted and depleted even to buzz when I opened their lid. That was last week, though. After 7 days of sugar water feeding (I went through an entire 10-pound bag of sugar), the queen has started laying again, and the bees are happy and buzzy once more.

Thanks to my beekeeping mentor Tommy Bailey for helping me with my hives. He came over Wednesday afternoon and took both hives apart, teaching me what to look for, and why.

He said the places where the bees had bridged the space between two of the frames was okay for now. We saw eggs, larvae in all different stages, and capped brood where more babies will be hatching. I watched several babies clamber out of the cells they’d matured in – that was so absolutely amazing I could have cried.

Look at the places where the bright yellow comb is showing. The grungy looking brownish junk (shown here on the inside lid) is propolis, the glue-like substnce that I wrote about earlier this year. The bees had used it to stick the lid to the top of the frames. Thank goodness for my yellow hive tool; otherwise we might never have gotten the lid off.

When it was all over, I brought the super back inside. No comb on it at all yet. I'll put it back in next spring.

BEEattitude for Day # 317:

       Blessed are those who keep going in spite of discouragement, for they shall be pleasantly surprised.

Fran's bee.s.: Thank you to those who emailed me asking about the bee sting on my leg. It's still pretty swollen. To get an idea of the size of it, spread your fingers really wide and lay your hand along the side of your leg. I've started taking an antihistamine. Probably should have done that as soon as it happened. I'll see if I can take a picture of it tomorrow