It was clear and sunny this morning with only a bit of steady breeze, so I lit the smoker and invaded the girls’ living quarters to see how they are settling in.

The colony seems to be doing well–given that I only installed the package on 14 April in an almost-brand-new hive with no drawn combs in the brood box. Added to that we’ve had a series of chilly, rainy days when there could be no foraging.

When I opened the hive today I was happy to see that four of the eight frames have comb either drawn or being drawn on them, and one side of the fifth frame was being drawn. On inspection, I saw eggs, larvae in various stages, and capped brood–all looking like a good laying pattern from this queen. Two of the frames were quite heavy with brood, pollen, and honey. There was a little capped honey, too.

I found the queen on one frame in from the outside on the right.  Some frames on the left of the brood chamber were completely undrawn, so I shifted everything toward the left, and put two of the empty frames on the right so that the brood is now more central in the chamber–I didn’t change the order of any frames with brood on them though–just shifted them toward the left. I sure hope that was an appropriate thing to do. (I suspect that this right sided distribution of drawn frames and brood has something to do with how I replaced frames after removing the shipping box from the hive–I should have split the empty frames–shifting the frame with the queen more toward the center of the hive. But that’s what keeps beekeeping interesting–always learning.

The colony seems quite calm–even while I was removing burr comb that they had constructed between the frame tops and the inner cover (and had filled with “nectar”–I couldn’t help wondering if that “nectar” was the sugar syrup from the bucket feeder that was on the hive. After inspection, I put the bucket feeder back on but if the weather holds, I’ll not refill it–letting the girls get on with foraging for nectar and pollen–or remove it in a couple days if it looks as if they are no longer taking the syrup.

Because I put these girls onto undrawn (but wax coated) frames, I had an entrance excluder in place so that the queen couldn’t get out of the hive–trying to be sure that the new package and queen didn’t abscond. Now that they have brood, I’ll remove that, but I think I’ll leave the entrance reduced for a bit longer until there are more bees in the colony (which shouldn’t be long given the amount of capped brood that I saw today).

For now, all seems well. Long live the (unnamed) queen in hive 2017A!

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