Hive Inspection – Pollen, Honey & a Bee Emerging From its Cell

A few days before Zachary’s accident, we went and checked on his bees.  I’ve been taking care of them since he’s now working in Sierra Vista.  I have to give them sugar syrup every day since Zachary purchased his bees after the nectar flow in the Spring.

If you take all their honey, if there’s not a good nectar flow or if you miss it when you first buy your bees like we did, you have to give them food, or they’ll die.

Both hives are doing well.

Hive #1 had a lot of stores (food being stored up for hard times) and quite a bit of capped brood which means, bees in the making.

Notice the honey stored up in these cells?

This is really interesting to me. See the bright yellow on that bee?  It’s pollen which they store up for food.

Check this out. Look where the arrow is pointing. That is a bee that was once larvae and is now a bee ready to exit its cell. It is slowly eating the covering that locked him into his cell and once it’s all gone, he emerges.

Hive #2 did not have much food stores but there were a lot more bees.  I consistently find the quart jar of sugar syrup I give them every day empty.  Hive #1, has a lot more food stores but less bees and the quart jar of sugar syrup I give them is never emptied out in a day.

If you want to read more about our bees, you can read about the arrival of the bees and about when we inspected the hives in May.

Joining up with The Prairie Homestead.