[jwcarlson]

Looked in our two hives yesterday with my dad and brother. Both looking great!

Dad in the smoke.

The Italian Queen... she has almost no wings left. Strangely. Not sure what causes that?

Only picture I snapped of our Carniolan hive: It's like they drew a straight line and laid drone on the one side and worker on the other. Pretty neat.
This queen is a laying fool, she again has an egg in every available comb (that we looked it). Brood started emerging in the middle of last week and there are a bunch of new bees around.

 

[estreya]

Magnificent! Isn't it thrilling?!

Do you have a lot of stores on your combs? I'll have to look more closely at your photos, but on first blush, it looked to be mostly brood. I'm wondering about feeding, which is why i posed the question ...

 

[jwcarlson]

Magnificent! Isn't it thrilling?!

Do you have a lot of stores on your combs? I'll have to look more closely at your photos, but on first blush, it looked to be mostly brood. I'm wondering about feeding, which is why i posed the question ...

Both hives were pretty much the same as far as stores go: frontmost comb dominated by pollen with some nectar. Other combs with a band of honey, band of pollen, then brood. This is the first inspection where the many of the honey bands at the tops of the frames were capped, though. That's kind of what I'm using to gauge how much they have for stores.

So seeing capped honey and honey in the process of being capped, I'm not to worried at the time being. But I don't have a good feel for "how much" they should have now, there are no dedicated honey combs yet. We haven't fed either hive for awhile. I'd have to check my notes for exact date, but it's been over two weeks.

The Italian hive had started hooking one side of their combs pretty badly, so we bent them back straight and smashed them onto the bar. That honey tasted great!

 

[jwcarlson]

My brother sent me a couple more pictures today.

Both of the Italian hive.

Saw this in my brother's yard this afternoon: