The opening of Hive A
We were told to wait a couple of weeks before opening Hive A after the bees had been delivered. This was the first time we had opened a hive on our own, although we had been chasing the bees from Hive B around the garden, so were getting quite confidant.
Week 2
We lit the smoker before closing our bee-suits as advised, then took the roof and crown board off exposing the frames of the brood box.
You can see from the above photo that the bees are using one side of the hive at the moment, slowly making their way towards the centre. One of us used a camera whilst the other used the hive tool to remove the frames and hold them up to be photographed. We carefully kept the frames over the hive to avoid losing the queen.
Quickly looking through the frames we identified honey, capped brood and pollen. I might take a magnifying glass next time. We did not see the queen, eggs or larvae.
Carefully putting the hive back together, we left it in peace for another week.
We we able to examine the photos of the frames at our leisure, here are some below.
We could now see eggs, larvae and even our wonderful queen. We need to mark her some how.
So, Hive A is good, but Hive B seems to be dwindling.
Week 3
Jennifer was away, but Jack ( our youngest ) helped me examine and photograph Hive A. Again, we saw eggs, larvae and brood in the photos together with the queen. Wonderful.
However, Hive B seems to have swarmed as only about 30% of the bees are left, getting less every day. Sad,as this is the top bar hive.
