Hive journal.

It's been 23 days since the bees decided to make my hive their new home.  They've had a rough go of it.  It hasn't been easy for them given the cold and the rain, which has limited their foraging opportunities.  Drawing new comb takes a large amount of energy and even though their little bee stomachs are stuffed with honey when they swarm, it won't provide sustenance for long.  I, of course, provided them with sugar water which they drank down to nothing and it sat empty for a day.

Last Wednsday my folks came to visit and of course had to visit the hive, and so we did. Mom and I donned the white jump suits complete with attached screened hood.  Daddy wore the veiled hood.  I noticed that all nectar stores were mostly gone and the few pollen cells that existed the week before were not there.  My bees were out of stores.  Now, it takes a cell of nectar, a cell of pollen and cell of water to make a bee.  There was definitely not going to be any bee making with such meager supplies.  I worried all the next day about them.  What could I do...I messaged the Apiary Guru, Charles, he said he would bring me a protein patty for them on Sunday, but I didn't think they could make it.  I didn't observe any eggs, if the girls didn't get to raising brood soon my colony would be sunk.  Then it hit me...in one of my books the author suggested putting a "pollen catcher", which I don't have, and make pollen patties out of local honey, the gathered pollen and powdered sugar...of course, the health food store will have bee pollen...people think it's healthy...whatever. 

Convinced my fellow sonographers to let me go home early, grabbed some pollen.  Concocted a pollen patty, took a while to get the right consistency so the girls wouldn't get stuck in it like fly paper.  Then I gave them  just a pile of pure pollen.  They attacked the patty and they devoured the pollen, it was gone in an hour.  I also gave them a mason jar of 2:1 sugar syrup.  I checked on them a couple times that evening and was satisfied that they were now getting the nutrition they need to raise some brood. 

Come Sunday, April 22nd, I received the protein patty from Charles.  Came directly home to place it in the hive for them.  While I was there, I inspected the frames...lo and behold...EGGS! And many of them.  Mind you I didn't see a queen, I'm not that skilled yet and I think her to be rather elusive.  But this is the first time I have observed eggs.  I also noticed a supercedure cell.  I didn't take too much time to inspect it, so I am not sure if it is a queen cell or not but it definitely wasn't there on the 18th.  So it will either be a queen cell or a drone cell. 

I noticed that some cells had two or three eggs in them but more than not only had one and they were centered in the bottom of the cell.  Multiple eggs in a cell happens sometimes with a young queen or maybe perhaps a failing queen (eeks).  But when several eggs are witnessed in a hodge podge in a cell it indicates a queenless hive so the worker bees, their under-developed reproductive bits not being suppressed by the pheromones of brood and the queen, begin to lay eggs.  The problem with this is the eggs they lay are not fertilized so they could only develop into drones.  Drones are pretty much useless, unless you have a virgin queen.  If your hive is queenless you can't just plug in a new queen, the laying workers will rebel.  There are a few ways to resolve this issue but I will spare you that education unless, of course, I must use one of them.  I'm hoping not.  Crossing my fingers I have a queen.  Otherwise my hive will surely be doomed as I do not have the resources to save it.

I will more than likely visit the hive this weekend and am anticipating larva.  And as I stated above, it's been 23 days since they've settled in...mind you, it takes 21 days to make a worker bee, 23 to make a drone and 16 to make a queen.  A bee can live up to 4 months.  My little bees need to get their little asses busy.

The amateur apiarist.

My 1st Colony of Bees

So here is the cluster that I caught yesterday.
It was located right across the street from my front door.
I have been contemplating keeping bees for about 3 or 4 years now and finally worked up the nerve to do it this year. I had planned on purchasing a package of bees from a place in Vacaville and driving them home in a couple weeks when lo and behold this swarm showed up as if to say "Melissa...we're here...where's that new hive of yours?"