Another hive check -- all looks well

Karl opened up the hive today and saw that the queen was going gangbusters laying eggs. She was in the super just under the queen excluder because those frames were filled with eggs. The super on the bottom of the hive was nearly empty though so the bees were coming into the hive and just going straight through. Trying to prevent the hive from swarming due to lack of space, Karl rotated the super with the queen down on the bottom and placed a new super on top of the queen excluder. Hopefully that will keep them happy and leave plenty of room for them to get busy making honey.

First Produce of Spring

Easter Egg Radishes!

Little Tikes Bee Water Cooler

Aksel left a plastic toy car out in the rain today. Once it cleared up a bit, the bees were out looking for water to drink. The word must have spread through the hive that the little car was the place to be this afternoon -- there was a steady stream of bees drinking from the shallow pools of collected water.

Honeybee on a Redbud Blossom

Our redbud tree in the backyard is situated a few feet in front of the entrance to our hive. It's just about in full bloom and the bees were out in full force. An Arkansas beekeeper has a great blog on bees and posted all about redbuds. From him I learned that redbud trees are a member of the legume or bean family, as is clover, alfalfa, and the black locust tree, all very important sources of nectar for honeybees.

New Hive Base

Karl built a new base for our hive so that he could incorporate small hive beetle traps into it. The new base consists a layer of beetle traps that small hive beetles can crawl into, but are too small for honey bees. When the beetles go into the traps they fall into a tray into which Karl poured a layer of vegetable oil. This picture shows how it all slides together. He also had to make sure that the stand was the exact right height so that the new entrance would align with the slit cut into the exterior wall.

Karl also used installing the new base as an opportunity to open up the hive and check out how everything looked. Bottom line, everything looked pretty good. There still was capped honey, there was larvae which means the queen was still around and healthy and there was newly stored pollen. Kai got to help this time. Next time it's Malin's turn.

Honey Bee in Action

This isn't a great picture and I don't know what kind of flower is in the planter, but I just can't resist snapping a photo of a honey bee in action on a beautiful spring day. I saw this one around the corner from where a fellow beekeeper lives so it likely was hers.