Identifying The Queen

The queens wings are not as long as the other bees,but her body is very long and thin, she has no hair and is very shiny, she is easy to find with a trained eye.

If you can locate her, just behind her, in a cell, is what appears to be a small white thread. This is actually a freshly laid egg!

Establishing the Hive

We most probably will not get any honey, to harvest, this first year. The bees will spend the time, from now until December, storing enough honey in order to survive the winter. We checked the hive and noticed larvae in the lower brood box. This is good news. We have a second hive consisting of a brood chamber and a super waiting in the wings for the Spring. At that point, we will decide whether to split the hive or order a new Queen and 3 more pounds of bees.

Intent

This blog is intended to document, with pictures, videos, and text, the successes and failures of our beekeeping experience. We started the hive in April with one Queen and 3 pounds of bees (approximately 10,000).

Here's what's happened so far: April through May the bees were doing great. They filled the lower brood box with lots of pollen, wax, and larvae. During the last part of June, they swarmed and we lost the Queen and about half of the colony. We then began checking the brood chamber more often and destroyed about 5 Queen cells while noticing approximately 10 Queen cells that were opened and vacant.

Three days ago, July 17th, we observed the new Queen in the brood chamber and she appeared fat and happy. So we added a second deep and a super. The activity of the bees over the past few days has increased and we're hoping that's an indication of a honey flow.