Queen inspection

Today we needed to go back in and complete what we started unsuccessfully last week. We were unable then to find the queen, so we gave it a week and looked again today. It was warm but windy. I'll have to remember to try to do this with less wind.

We first took a look at the bottom hive body. We found a lot of honey, open and capped, as well as some larvae. Some of the larvae appeared to be capped, which it should be at this point. We did not find the queen in the lower box, so moved to the upper again, which we examined last week. Much more comb had been built up. On the next to the last frame, we found the queen. She was very easy to spot. In the video, she is in the lower left corner of the frame, difficult to see on the film. We carefully put that frame back in and closed the hive. We never did see any eggs, though we could have been more thorough in our examination. Clearly, there was larva present and things looked fine, at least to our untrained eyes. We have class again this weekend and will need to add the rest of the chemical for AFB.

Bees have been very busy and active. There are many dandelions about and the fruit trees still have blossoms, though not as many as a week ago. Other flowers and bushes are beginning to bloom, though. The blueberries are just starting to blossom, and the grapes will be in full bloom in the next couple weeks. We're getting rain tonight and the coming week appears wet, which is great for the flowers but not so much for the bees. We are still feeding the sugar water, however, for those cooler, damp days.