27 Jul Finding my Queen Bee

I tend to worry.. sometimes a lot.  I think its the Mom in me and I can’t help it.  The honey bees were a concern a few weeks ago because after doing several hive inspections  the queen bee was no where to be found.  I was stressed about it, and thought maybe she died, or the colony swarmed, but the numbers of bees was certainly growing.

Luckily, we did eventually find her and it was a huge relief – I even squealed a little and did a bit of a happy dance which pissed off some guard bees. But I did learn what to look for in case this happened again. Forgive my photography skills while in a hood and working with gloves on…

there's the big Mama bee!! the white dot on her back makes it easy to find her

Things I learned:

• Don’t squeal and act like an idiot near the beehive

• I need to consider  investing in a queen excluder…

• Don’t use the smoker – it tends to make her hide

But most importantly:

• Look for the eggs and various stages of larva development (the eggs look like tiny grains of rice, the larvae look like little tiny worms that grow and are eventually capped off):

• 

  look very closely at the bottom of the comb...

  

  more babies!