They’re not going anywhere

I had fully intended to open my hives and look in on the bees today. I last looked in on them last Monday, April 26th, to make sure the queens had both been accepted by their respective hives. Both were out of their cages and on the foundation frames their girls drew out for them. I didn’t check further than that, i.e. to see if they were laying eggs yet. That was supposed to be today.

So, what happened, Erin? I can hear you say from here. Honestly, I’m not sure. My videographer put his new monitor for his amazingly complex computer up on the wall so he doesn’t run the risk of doing something stupid like cracking the screen. (Can you tell I didn’t mention that just randomly? Yeah.) Once that was up, I lost him to a game of Minecraft. So, I took a little nap.

Once I woke up from that nap, people were getting hungry, so I ended up making more sugar water for my bee girls and chopping celery so everyone could put together their tuna salad for dinner. Once I did that the sugar water was cool enough to pour into the container to be taken to my girls.

When I arrived at my bee yard down the hill from the house, it was strange. My hives face different directions. The hive facing west was nice and calm. The bees were coming and going as they should.

The other hive faces east. I don’t know what it is about facing east, but this hive has been more active from the beginning. They started bringing in pollen before the other hive. The reason I have more doors open than I sometimes feel is right this early in their time with me. This hive was very loud. I watched a video this week of a swarm practice. This hive sounded just like that. They’ve only been in the hive for a week and a half-ish. They aren’t ready to swarm, I hope!

The landing board was hopping! The continued through refilling their feeder. I didn’t open the hive completely, but I did move one of the feeders to take a peek inside. The bees are mostly on one side of the hive, but they are beginning to work on the other side of the hive. So, I’m not sure what was going on, but it makes me really want to get in there and see what’s happening with these girls!

Hopefully sometime soon I’ll have some video(s) to share with you on what’s happening in the hives. I’m anxious to find out!