It is April 30 and the brown, drab, lifeless landscape of late winter and early spring has transformed into a breathtaking wonder! Trees adorned in white, pink and purple demand to be noticed. The countless shades of green, the plants that grow inches overnight, the smell of lilacs, and the melodious buzzing of the bees never cease to amaze me.
The overwintered colony whose cluster was only 3 to 4 frames months ago is now bursting at the seems of its two deep hive bodies. I dare say, swarming is close at hand. I have started the OTS, On The Spot queen rearing system by removing the queens from some of my larger hives and making an artificial swarm with each. This ensures, they can't swarm on me. I notched the remaining brood frames in each hive and will check 7 to 10 days later for queen cells and then make splits. I hope to get pictures of this process for the next blog. For now, enjoy these pictures.
 |
| This forager is bringing back red pollen. I've been told it is from the purple dead nettle, picture below. |
 |
| Purple Dead Nettle, suspected source of the red pollen pictured above. |
 |
| Hives near the Purple Dead Nettle. However I couldn't find a honeybee on these a the time. |
 |
| Honeybee on Willow. |
 |
| Bumblebee on Maple bloom |
 |
| Native bee on crab apple blossom |
 |
| Honeybee on crab apple blossom |
 |
| Honeybee coming in for a landing on crab apple blossom |
 |
| Honeybee forager with large load of pollen, crab apple blossom. |
 |
| Bumblebee on Bleeding Heart bloom. |
 |
| Bumblebee on Quince bloom. |
 |
| Honeybee on unknown flower |
 |
| Honeybees on freshly drawn comb. Forgot to put the queen excluder on this hive and they built this above the frames. |
 |
| New wax with eggs laid in each cell. Honeybees tending to larva. |
No comments:
Post a Comment