Well I’ve had the bees for a month and everything’s going great. I hesitate to say this, because I haven’t seen inside the hive for over a week, but they are making beautiful comb and we have seen capped brood, larvae and nectar and the hive is “a hive of activity” every day. In the evenings we can hear a background hum while they go about their business inside the hive and fan off the nectar before they cap it as honey.
Here are some pix:
- Comb with nectar
and I am very fond of this one, although this particular comb is now much bigger:
New comb
It’s so white!
I haven’t seen the queen yet but I have seen babies so I know she is in there and laying. The bees work purposively, day and night, so I conclude that the colony is “queen right.”
We are surprised how little they seem to come into the garden. Positioned in the corner of two ivy hedges, flanked by the greenhouse on one side and the oak tree on the other, they obviously perceive a sort of barrier between them and the garden and just don’t come this way. However our next door neighbours both say they have seen more bees in the garden and assume they’re mine. So they must be crossing the garden or going along the back!
So far, whenever we’ve gone into the hive, they have been a little bit agitated and the buzz rises in both pitch and volume once we pull the follower board back. But neither of us has been stung yet. The rest of the time they are lovely happy docile bees.
The birds are more active particularly the robin and the woodpecker (the woodpecker wants to eat them I expect). A local cat was a bit annoyed to find bees on his route. People are starting to ask me for honey so I am compiling a list.
I have named the top bars rather than numbering. You can write the numbers so that you can tell which way up to put the bars (6s and 9s are particularly difficult, not to mention 8s) but names are nicer and you can see immediately when one is the wrong way up. And it’s better karma. The names so far are:
Wisdom
Strength
Joy
Serenity
Beauty
Peace
Generosity
Fortitude
Kindness
Patience
Courage
The little one in the pic above is Beauty, the larger one is Wisdom. I name them as I add them and the next two will be Honour and Valour.
Like the naming the frames idea!
Yes, someone at Biobees did it and I loved it so I copied her
(I did ask first!)