I see eggs!!!

 

Tuesday April 24, 2012 was my first happy inspection. I went to the hive on Tuesday and I just about jumped for joy about the results.

Tuesday morning before school I packed up all of my beekeeping stuff along with paper work and things for teaching. In every down moment of the day, which honestly there aren't many, my mind wandered to what may be happening in the hive. Maybe the old queen returned and there was regicide going down. Maybe the queen is already laying eggs. Maybe a raccoon knocked over the hive to get to the sugar water. My mind was racing. I did get to indulge a bit in the middle of the day though.

I lead a class at my school which is like an advisory type course. We do team building activities and discuss our academic character, lots of fun stuff. During my crew I shared all of the pictures Melissa took while we were doing the install on Saturday. My crew mates were amazed. They had a million questions about why I was doing this at all and a variety of questions about bees I hadn't ever even thought about. It wasn't just a show and tell I did have an awesome opportunity to talk about courage and sacrifice with my kids in connection to the bees. I asked them as a closure question, "What about the behavior of the bees expresses one of our 5 vital character traits, Courage, Humility, Integrity, Leadership, or Support?" There weren't a whole lot of responses but one quality answer gets at a point that I think is so cool about bees.

For one of my students, the idea that a bee dies once it stings, just didn't sit right with him. He went on to think through his point of view out loud, when I asked my question. He said, "Man, I guess those bees are really courageous because they stung you even though they were going to die. They didn't do it to make you mad or something, they did to because they thought they were protecting the hive. That is a real sacrifice, I think I would sting someone if my family was in danger."

This idea is what really intrigues me about bees. The difference between individual and collective choices. Bees make lots of individual choices, like which flower to go to, or whether they want to go to the feeder for some sugar water. However they make these choices with the collective in mind. They sting, not because they want to protect themselves, stinging is actually suicide. They sting to protect the hive they are a part of. Pretty awesome.

Fire hazard?

After my indulgence during crew I had a regular day at school and got to Acorn Hill a little before five. I pulled into the field and lit up my smoker. When I was veiled and headed over to the hive Rick the neighbor came out to meet me. I thought he was going to mention our late night excursion and how he was laughing at us through his window or something. Fortunately he was just really curious and wanted to check out the hive with me. We walked over together and I told him my whole queen fiasco and about our late night adventure. Lucky for me he didn't hear me running through the woods away from that devil deer.

Rick is an interesting and curious guy. He told me about how him and a friend used to get calls to catch swarms around town. He was really intrigued by my hive top feeder and the frame holder I have. He had never seen them before. He has been out of the game for some time now. It was cool sharing information with him, and at least trying to answer some of his questions. I think that is the coolest part of beekeeping so far, talking with other people about it. Both those people who don't know anything and others who are wise old beekeepers. Bees are a social insect and they seem to have invaded my social life in an interesting way.

While I was talking with Rick I smoked the hive and pulled out the couple of frames with bees on them. I noticed right away that the comb was more than half way drawn out on three hives, and there are pollen and nectar stored in a number of cells. I was looking for two things on this inspection, if I had a queen in the hive and if she had laid any eggs.

Eggs on the right pupae on the left (not my hive)

When I first opened up the hive I saw the queen cage was empty and had a small amount of comb drawn on the bottom. Which is pretty incredible considering It had been less than 24 hours since I placed it in the hive. I am really happy to report that I found the queen crawling around the second frame I pulled, and I saw A TON of eggs. It is incredible to see, they look like tiny grains of rice in the very bottom of the comb cell. When I saw the eggs I almost screamed out in joy. I think Rick might think I'm a little crazy. I was pumped. I tried to show him but he wasn't wearing a veil and he is a cautious guy.

After my initial excite over the eggs, my more rational brain kicked in and I packed the hive up without disturbing it any more. I placed the frames back in and closed her up. Before I put the lid on though I noticed there were a lot of dead bees floating in the feeder. Also there were almost no live bees in the feeder. I thought maybe all the dead girls are holding back everyone else from drinking. Or they are out drinking nectar instead, which is really likely. One way or the other I thought cleaning out the feeder would be a good idea. I started by swiping out dead bees with my hive tool. I upgraded my technique by using the floating board to skim off the dead bees and shake them onto the ground. I am just hoping that all the extra sugar water on the ground won't start robbing or attract unwanted evening guests.

So there it is for now. My bees are queen right and doing there thing. In three weeks those eggs will be brand new worker bees. I plan on returning a few times just to watch them fly, but I think I won't open the hive again for two weeks. Then only to see if I need to put on another medium hive body to accommodate new growth. I am going to wait until at least 7 frames are drawn out with comb. Until I add another box. 

I hope that however reads this finds it interesting and useful on some level. Drop a comment if you have a question or want me to add anything to my posts.

Picture of the eggs from www.honeybeesuite.com/