My Yellow Hive

MrILoveTheAnts · June 09, 2008, 05:31:55 PM

A month ago I collected a swarm from one of my hives. Today I decided to check on them. I had no idea they could completely draw out all 10 frames in that time. I'm glad I checked them when I did. They were starting to fill up above the frames with bur comb. The white wax really gives the honey a suggested taste of lemony.

One of the outer frames, shows a pinkish color of brood cells before they turn dark form an older hive. There seems to be two distinct shades of honey. The much lighter part I believe is newer and likely from the clover harvest and other summer nectar sources. I don't know what the darker batch to the right is from.

Larva in cells.

It neat to see the hexagon pattern still shows through under the capped cells.

And of course I've since added another deep to the hive. Let's see how fast it takes them to fill it up.

annette · June 09, 2008, 06:03:07 PM

Just love these photos of the hives. They make me smile. Thanks for sharing.

Annette

MrILoveTheAnts · June 09, 2008, 06:10:28 PM

A picture I forgot to upload. Might as well post it now.

annette: Glad to make you happy.

annette · June 09, 2008, 06:24:59 PM

Oh what a cute little girl!!!! Don't you just wish we could hug and kiss them?? I do anyway, in my mind.

Love
Annette

Scadsobees · June 10, 2008, 10:05:57 AM

Picture #3, with the 2 colored cappings....interesting!

That isn't actually honey that you are seeing there, that is most all capped brood. The reason for the two colors is because the darker cappings are probably the first batch that the queen layed in the first comb drawn, those ones are darker because they are closer to hatching, staining their cells and spinning their cocoon.

The lighter patch is actually newly capped brood, they haven't drawn a cocoon yet and stained their cells. That comb took a little longer to draw and the queen didn't get back there to lay for a little while.

You won't see this on older comb since it is all stained dark already.

Looks like they are going gangbusters!

MustbeeNuts · June 12, 2008, 11:36:12 PM

Nice looking healthy bees there, they seem to be going very well. Looks good! :)

papabear · June 15, 2008, 12:08:29 PM

Awsome pics. What kind of camera do u use?

qa33010 · June 16, 2008, 01:31:39 AM

Wow! It even looks like they wipe their feet before they enter the hive. :-D

MrILoveTheAnts · June 16, 2008, 01:22:31 PM

I use an Olympus SP-510UZ because it had the right price and a super macro feature. There are far better cameras on the market of course. It's fine for what I'd use it for now but some day I really want to get that close up of what's up a honey bee's nose.