[jgknowla1]

Great day in beekeeping! I took advantage of the good weather to do an inspection and look for a few things.

First, I wanted to see how much comb they've built and what they're doing with it. Second, I wanted to find the queen if possible. Third, I wanted to find evidence that the queen is healthy and laying.

The inspection was a success! They have three good sized combs and and have started filling each with pollen and nectar. I happened to find the queen. And by looking at pictures afterwards, I found eggs in brood cells!

These bees were installed April 5, so it's been 6 days.

 

[tibadoe]

Looks like the bees are doing a great job. Nice picture of the eggs.

 

[CessnaGirl]

Nice photos. Your little ladies are busy and doing an excellent job. Congrats!

 

[Barry Digman]

Nice bees, nice photos. Can you tell us about the camera setup?

 

[jgknowla1]

Hi Barry - I've got a Nikon D40, which is a few years old at this point. I've got the standard lens on it - the 18-55mm. I believe it's a 6 Mpixel camera, but it blows any point-and-shoot camera out of the water still. I particularly like its ability to use fast shutter speeds even in sub-optimal light.

I don't know much about photography (I have a book around here somewhere that I need to read though), but for the bee hive, I just keep it handy and take lots of pictures when I have a chance. Then, I go through them and look for good ones.

For the eggs, I searched through the pictures and zoomed in on the computer to show them better.

-Josh

 

[Mike Gillmore]

What a great start! Congrats.

 

[Beeonefarms]

Very impressed .. i cant wait to shoot some pics with nikon 5200 .. 4 nucs arriving ( to be picked up ) in 24 days.. Keep up the great work and keep us posted..

 

[Duncan151]

Looking good, I see in picture 6 that you have some of those new, flat, bees! I have a few of them as well, they are very gentle and never sting!

 

[jgknowla1]

Duncan - yeah, I feel kinda bad about that. With the top bars, I dread pushing them together too quickly. Today I figured out that if I use the smoker on the gap between the bars as I slide them together, the bees tend to get out of the way. I hope that doesn't mean the smoke was too hot.

It's amazing how I may have 10,000 of the little gals, but I'm still protective of each one!

 

[Duncan151]

You will squish a few no matter what you do, especially in July, when it is hot and you are sweaty, the hive is booming, and no matter what you do one keeps sticking her head out of the crack. I also lift the bar I am putting back up a little and go over their heads and push them down a bit as the bar goes back into place. It also helps to keep the bars together as you mover them back for inspections, then put them back in place 2, 3, or 4 at a time.

 

[jgknowla1]

Very good tip - kind of push them back down into the hive as you put the bar in.

 

[jwcarlson]

Installed mine the same day you did and I've got nothing but a cluster to show for it. What have your highs been the last week?

 

[jgknowla1]

jwcarlson - We've been having a nice warm week - highs in the 70-80 range and lows around 50. There seem to be lots of things blooming too. Before having bees, I never paid as much attention to the blooms. Dogwood, peach, ornamental flowers, azalea, etc.

We're swimming in some kind of tree pollen - pine or oak, not sure - if only they'd collect that instead of it ending up on my truck!

Where are you in Iowa? My in-laws were planning to relocate to just outside of Ames. From looking into that relocation, it sure seems that y'all get much colder than we do here in central NC.

 

[jwcarlson]

Eastern Iowa, right on the tip actually. Had highs in 50s/60s the last week. Two day stretch of 70s or so. Tomorrow supposed to bring a cold front and back to the upper 40s/50s for highs no 60s in forecast until next weekend. Not holding out much hope for my package. It came three weeks early.

We don't even have any trees budding out yet. I'm sure maples and some other are blooming, but the fruit trees certainly aren't. I really think getting them three weeks early for a virgin hive was basically a death card.

Your bees look like they're doing great though!

 

[jgknowla1]

So sorry to hear that it isn't looking good. I really don't have enough experience to know what you can expect. I'm giving mine 1:1 sugar syrup as well - forgot to mention that. They're probably taking about a quart a week at the current rate.

 

[Andrew Dewey]

I don't think there is ever a time that you need to lay eyes on the queen unless you have a purpose. Nice pics. Looks like your colony is off to a good start.

 

[seaston]

Great pictures! Thank you.

I hived 2 packages two days ago and I hope my frames look this nice when I peek next weekend.