What a difference a few days can make! We didn't get the rain showers called for this weekend, and the dry days seem to have given my colony the break they needed to go out and get some business done.
Yesterday my mom stopped down and was interested in seeing the colony so I suited up and took her out to break down the hive. Much to my delight, there was a beautiful pattern of brood, pollen, and light colored honey on the inner brood frames! Additionally, the bees were busy drawing comb on the outer brood frames, which signaled to me that Catherine the Great has no intention of slowing down now that she's in prime production. I also noticed some "fanning"by the workers to distribute the queen's pheromones (known as queen substance). This is good because it keeps the colony happy and workers fanning it can signal that the queen has had a successful mating flight ... which means, BABIES (and sequentially more respect from the colony)!
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| Look at all the pollen surrounding the brood!! |
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| This photo has it all: capped brood, larva, nurse bees, pollen legs ... whew! |
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| A closer view of larva in the upper right corner. |
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| "Woman, what do you think you're doing? Get over here and pet me!" |
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After seeing how busy the bees have been, I had a good laugh at myself for being so worried. As seen above, they are doing just fine and seemingly thriving. Silly me!
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