More room for busy bees

The phrase busy as a bee now makes perfect sense.

Laura, Jerry and I took a peek in the hive on a recent warm afternoon.

Laura had peeked in earlier, and already knew that our bees were doing well. She found the queen and took a fantastic picture of larvae.

We had ordered a four pound package, rather than the three pound package, and that seemed to make a difference. Our bees were quickly setting up housekeeping.

I was excited to take another peek in the hive. Because our bees were doing so well, we got ready with another box for the bees, in case they needed more room.

First, we prepared the smoker. The smoke encourages the bees to run inside and eat their honey, presumably in case a fire is coming and they need to abandon their hive.

We pulled out the frames and took a good look around. We found tiny eggs and, after a short hunt, the queen. She is much larger than the rest of the bees, and is also marked. The mark on her back is added to make her easier to find. (In this photo, she’s toward the center, with a white mark on her back.)

After our inventory, we decided the bees needed some more room, and so added a second box to the hive.

It will be awhile now before we will have to get back into the hive. The bees will need some time to expand to their second story. In the meantime, Laura is continuing to feed them sugar water, and will until enough natural nectar is available that they stop drinking the sugar water.

The next big step will be adding a honey super at the top of the box. When we get to that point, it will be an exciting day.

After we finished the expansion for the bees, we settled in to watch them — something I expect we will do a lot this summer.