Eggs at Last!!!

Today was the big day – the one where we took the frames out, one at a time, looking for the queens and eggs or brood. The sun was out, the day was warm, and the bees were flying. Dave and I headed over to the hives. I brought the frames for the top brood box in case the bottom boxes were filled. Both hives had bees in the empty top brood box drinking sugar syrup from the jars. We decided to take out the feeders from inside the hive – we just couldn’t fill them with the weather being so bad. The jars will be easier to deal with. It doesn’t disturb the hive so much to open the top and replace the jar. I’ll just have to check them every couple of days.
It’s strangely peaceful handling the frames. I have to move slowly to allow them time to get out of the way and avoid squishing them. And so far they’ve been wonderfully co-operative. Even the one that somehow got in my hood was removed with no stinging.

We found maybe five of the frames have been partially built on. The left hive had more eggs and brood, but both had them in even patterns. There are sealed honey/sugar syrup cells as well as pollen. I’m reading Wisdom of the Hive right now by Tom D. Seeley. He says that pollen gathering is more sporadic than nectar gathering since they only use pollen to rear brood. I watched the hives earlier this morning and found that about 20 bees per minute were entering the hives with pollen. I thought that boded well for having brood and it did.

The left hive is still stubbornly trying to build feral comb off the cover. I’m hoping that with the removal of the inner feeders this will stop. The piece I scraped off today had eggs in it (see pic). All in all, a very good day with the bees.