A Look Inside the Hives

The bees have been busy lately! Though I’m new to bee talk, it seems that maybe there has been a ‘nectar flow’ going on the past two weeks around these parts. I thought I’d share a little look inside.

I still haven’t gotten stung (knock on wood!). I have been doing my inspections without gloves as a book I read said it’s better to work the frames without gloves. So far so good.

A question for you beekeepers out there, does the picture just above these words look like capped drone cells? Whilst the one above that look like worker brood? Only after I closed this hive up did I realize there weren’t many drones in this colony and then after reviewing the pictures it looked to me like the above picture might be a patch of drone brood. This is all from the smaller hive.

The larger hive has it’s top super completely full of honey! I’m going to have to add another in a few days.

This bush has helped with this assumed nectar flow, I believe. Every time I walk past it, it is humming with the sound of happy foraging bees.

Evening Garden Walk

Last night while the three kids were happily playing Legos in their room, I literally tip toed out of the back door for a little garden-camera time. The evening primroses are in their glory, the bees seem to love them too.

The scabiosas are starting to burst. We have them in wild abundance. At first I wasn’t sure they were scabiosas, as the ones I were used to were only two or three feet tall at most, these are at eye level. I didn’t have to stoop down at all to take these photos. They come in all shades of purple and I do adore them.

While our tomato plantings were delayed due to bed preparation, they are in and growing like wild behind the shed.

Fresh fruit is on the horizon!!! I’ve been so tired of eating mushy store bought apples and I’m quite worn out on citrus at this point, the hope of in-season fruit is thrilling!

zucchini and oregano

How are things looking in your garden? Any early season successes? Failures?