Friday, April 20, 2012

First Hive Inspection and First Newbee Mistake

When I got home from work I decided it was time to open up the beehive and see if the queen has been released from her cage. I fired up the smoker, put on my suit and opened things up. I found that the queen cage had all its candy eaten away and the queen was not inside! Excellent. The bad news was, apparently the bees don't like to Duragilt foundation very much. It bows to one side of the frame, and the bees built some wonky comb on the concave side. I decided to take out that comb. That was a mistake.

Here's a picture of the comb I pulled out:


Beautiful yellow wax, apparently not from the sugar syrup, because that was almost untouched. This piece of comb had nectar stored in it, and upon further inspection - eggs. Crap. The good news is that the queen was released. The bad news is that I pulled out a big piece of comb with new eggs on it. I figure it's too late to put it back in and have the eggs be viable. At this point, I know I have a laying queen so I'm going to leave the hive closed for two weeks and see what I find then.

Another pretty picture:



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