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Showing posts from July, 2017
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I've just had a... feeling about the hive. Since the install, we've seen bees walking around outside of the hive, on the ground, near the entrance. They're walking and moving slowly, almost as if they brought themselves out of the hive because they knew they were dying. So there's dead bees by the entrance. I know that they remove the dead ones, but something just seemed odd about the number of bees by the entrance. We've also noticed that bees are dying with their tongues sticking out. I didn't really think anything of it. Matt looked it up and read that it's a sign of pesticide poisoning. I asked this in a beekeeping FB group and it was confirmed. Suggested if I could learn where and when people were spraying, I could at least lock up the bees until it settles. Another weird thing, today, after work, we noticed, what might be, pollen, about 7ft behind the hive. Still waiting to hear from Ed about this. I want to open up the hive again, but I d
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It's been a week and 5 days since we've installed the Moana hive. We cracked her open last Saturday, just to take a peek at any progress. Saw lots of brood, covered caps, larvae, and eggs. No sight of the Queen, even though she's dotted with a yellow dot. On the left are uncapped and capped brood. On the right are cells that are starting to fill up with nectar to be made into honey.  Inside the cells are worker bee larvae, they look like little, curved worms. To the very left, are drone larvae cells, they're bigger than the worker bee cells.  But, since we saw eggs, that means she's been active at least 3 days ago. Not too much capped honey, but there were cells with nectar. When we first installed the hive, we had added a deep super below the medium one that was installed. I had hoped that the bees would take to it and start filling up those frames, but the last time we checked on the hive, they were pretty much ignoring it. Bees tend to build their hive