Beaties and the Beast

Aren't they beautiful?

I totally feel like a new parent, as I've taken about 46 pictures of my babies in the last week.  Don't worry: I'll only subject you to a few of them . . .

This picture thrills me to no end, as it shows that my first hive has already started filling new frames with honey.  That bottom corner shows where they've capped the honey cells; eventually, all the honey frames will look like that.

At least, I think they will.

Or are supposed to.

But maybe not; what do I know?

Apparently, I really don't know much (shocking), as evidenced by the fact that the wild hive filled areas between several frames with this:

I asked some professional beekeepeers what it meant, and they told me that the spaces between the frames inside the hive were too large, and the bees had to build these cells outwards to fill the gaps.  The professional beekeepers said the spaces were too big because I had a certain type of 'water trough' in the hive, which the professionals say doesn't fit properly and actually drowns more bees than it waters.  The professionals say I should remove it and get a waterer that goes outside the hive.

And, yes, I'm a little bitter.  Not about the professionals giving me their advice, mind you, but about the fact that I wasn't actually around to receive it.  I was at my gardening class when the professionals stopped by, so they told all this to Bee, who now seems to feel that the professionals' way is the only way, and thinks I'm a 'bee killer' for deciding not to heed their advice.

Hey, I'm not ignoring them to be stubborn: I've just found out over the last several months of research that every beekeeper has a different opinion, and I decided I was currently more comfortable with the opinion of the in-hive water trough people (many of whom are also professionals).

Oh, and guess what?  There were only about 6 drowned bees in the first hive, and none in the second.  So there.

Be that as it may, I decided to scrape off that extra cell build-up from the wild hive . . . or at least most of it.  The bees were not happy.  And I felt pretty beastly for doing it, since they'd worked so hard to build all that, and had already even filled some of the cells with pollen and honey.

So, basically, I am a 'bee killer'.

Hopefully I haven't permanently damaged the hive by doing so.  Particularly since I finally found this:

I am almost sort of certain that's the queen of the wild swarm.  Cool, huh?

You know what else is cool?  Babies!

All those cells at the bottom (from the first hive) are drone brood cells.  As you may recall, the drones are the males, and they basically do nothing but lounge around and wait for the opportunity to have sex with a new queen (which I think happens approximately once in their lives).  If you zoom in on the above picture, you may even see a little larva in a cell or two.  Here's a closer shot:

see the white blobs inside the cells?

I'm such a proud mamma!

Alright, that's it for this week's update.  Perhaps by the next post I won't have bees on the brain quite so much, and we'll be able to talk about something new.

Like chickens.