1st Hive Inspection of 2012 (March 1)

This week I made a quick inspection on both hives.  The temperature was near 80 degrees so it was a great time to see what has been going on for the past several months.  Overall the hives were very healthy.  Lots of eggs, larvae, capped brood, pollen and capped honey stores.

This tells me the Queen is still alive and healthy, the worker bees are finding a pollen source and they are gearing up for the nectar flow.

Here are a few pictures documenting what I saw in Christin's hive.



It was obvious the bees were eager to get out and collect pollen on a warm day.  Here is a bee returning with pollen.

This frame shows the classic "rainbow" pattern.  The pattern shows capped brood at the bottom, above that is pollen and in the top corners and across the top is capped honey.  The food is never too far away making it easy to feed the larvae.

During the inspection I found the Queen!!  I marked her last year with a white dot of paint to make her easier to spot during inspections.  You can see all of the capped brood around her.  This is the next generation of worker bees that will hatch shortly. 

Lastly, I wanted to show the amount of bees in this hive.  Keep in mind we have not hit the peak of the amount of bees we can expect in this hive in 4 -6 more weeks.  The mild winter tricked the Queen into never truly stopping egg laying.