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Here's a bee update for you all. First off, thanks to several of you for your name submissions. We settled on Priscilla and Aretha for our two royal ladies. And both are doing a great job at working at their hives. Pretty much, if you have a healthy working queen, you have a healthy working hive. So, so far so good.
Each week we open the hives up to take a look at the status of things inside. We're looking for several things. First, we want to make sure they have enough room to work in (so they're not building honey comb in random places, called burr comb), but that they're also cozy enough (so they're not building burr comb).
Second, we want to see all stages and types of food. They need pollen packed in lots of cells for the protein in their diet during the winter. You can see lots of it in the picture above. If you click on the picture and look closely, you can also see all the different colors of pollen from all the different flowers they've been to. They also need honey for their carbohydrates. There should be cells shimmering with liquid, still getting filled up, and there should be capped honey cells, like the white stuff in the picture above, stored for winter.
We also want to see all life stages of bees. There need to be eggs, tiny rice shaped guys in the bottom of cells. Also larvae, curled up into little c's in their cells. And there need to be capped brood, like the bee's cocoon, from whence an adult bee will emerge. The beige stuff in the picture above is capped brood. Also on that frame is capped honey, conveniently a different color than the capped brood.
The last things we kind of scan for are (1) queen cells, nurseries for a new baby queen, indicating that the hive is unhappy with their current queen and would like to leave her behind or that she's dying; and (2) the queens themselves. So far Aretha has been quite forthcoming; we've seen her almost every time we open up the hives. Priscilla is a little more shy, but she's definitely made appearances, and is assuredly doing a fine job since her hive is healthy.
We'll keep posting with pictures and things as the summer continues and our hives get taller! And hopefully we'll be able to capture Her Royal Highnesses in photos for you at some point too.
