Observation hive observations

[Scadsobees]

About 2 weeks ago I finally finished up my observation hive and got it populated.  Very cool!  I really enjoy watching them, and I took it to school this week, and the kids and teachers LOVED it!!  So do I!  It is a bit of a pain switching in and out frames, though.

So far I've seen:
They have raised many emergency queen cells.  They would cap one and then tear it down the next day.

I had a side of capped brood too close to the glass, and they had to tear a whole bunch of capped brood out (I felt really bad about that).

A SHB got in there, probably attracted to the smell of stress when they were tearing the brood out.  There were hundreds of the SHB worms in there!  The bees successfully got them out, and I managed to squish the beetle against the glass.

I enjoy watching the bees do their dance.  I didn't realize that there would be so many of them wriggling around.  I haven't tried to decipher the dance yet.

Finally, 3 days ago, a queen hatched out.  Then yesterday, looking at the hive, I saw a queen butt sticking out of a cell.  She managed to back out, and it was a different queen (a pretty rough one, bedraggled with wings that looked chewed on the ends, not wrinkled like DWV).  Then looking through the rest of the hive I found the original one plus another one!  The virgin queens look bored.  They just walk around.  The bedraggled one would climb into a cell, spend a minute with only her butt sticking out, then back out and walk around, find a different cell, then repeat.  The other two didn't.

We'll see what happens over the next week or so....
Rick

[JP]

If I had an observation hive my wife would always know where to find me...I would never watch tv again, well maybe a little...I probably wouldn't get much work done...and I'd probably come up with a way to put me inside of it so I could study the bees even closer...would probably become a lazy, drone...ok, so I have thought about making one...soon...well, when I can. Good post Rick.