Bee Lessons: Larvae

Moist little larvae are pure eye-candy for the springtime beekeeper. When opening up your hives each week, you want to see plenty of larvae as evidence of your queen’s fertility.
This image shows larval stage bees (”grubs” nestled in the comb. In a top bar hive like mine, the larvae are frequently mixed with honey [...]

So many questions from the newbeek

More for my own reference than anything else, here’s a brain dump of questions I have 3 weeks into beekeeping:

For the summer, should we remove the bottom board leaving only a screened bottom?
Do drones buzz louder than worker bees?
Is it possible that workers built a supercedure cell but didn’t move an egg into [...]

Bee video goodness live from Albuquerque

For your edification and delight, here’s some titillating footage of our bee package installation. It’s a kenyan top bar classic sure to amaze friends and family.

Queenless?

One week after installing a new package, we opened up our hive and found:

tons of honey
2 new combs
some larvae
no queen
no new brood
2 supercedure cells

Methinks the queen has disappeared. We didn’t remove the supercedure cells thinking that maybe the workers are trying to raise a new one but at the end of the day we’re utter [...]

Freeing the queen

Yesterday evening, I checked on the queen.
Activity around the hive had settled into a normal pattern, but I wanted to make sure she’d been freed from her cage properly. At sunset, A. and I opened the hive (my first opening without the patient oversight of TJ) to find that she was nearly freed but not [...]

Bee Lessons: Worker Brood

Here’s another lesson from the Albuquerque bee man, TJ, and his rooftop hives.

Comb filled with tight even worker brood like this is pure eye candy for the beekeeper opening her hives in Spring. Lots of worker brood means a strong workforce able to harvest spring nectar.
At my place in the city of Albuquerque, [...]

It’s bee day

I started my first urban beehive today with the help of a nucleus colony ordered from Texas and the advice of local bee sage, TJ.
Here’s the story.

Hive a waitin’

Like a lady in waiting, here’s my hive. Tomorrow its occupants arrive, all 10,000 of ‘em. I’m so juiced, I can barely sleep.

My lovely new topbar hive

Props to local woodworker, Bill H., for crafting this lovely little bee home. It’s a Kenyan Top Bar Hive with plenty of modifications designed by local bee sage, TJ.
I’ve got a lot of old men looking out for me.

My hive has arrived…

My hive has arrived! I will post pictures soon.
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