The bee tree bees are doing great. I have been checking on them periodically to make sure they are doing good. They have only went through about 12oz. of 1:1 sugar water. They stopped drinking it sometime last week. I got a little worried about the queen last week. I did a quick inspection and couldn't find her. I looked for eggs to avail as well. (I could've just not saw them) I closed everything up and let them be for another week.
I had recently purchased a queen catcher, marking tube, and paint pen from a local supplier and decided I would delve back into the hive to see if I could find and mark her.
While looking through the frames I finally saw eggs, LOTS of them.
It appears that she will have a great brood pattern. Apparently, I overlooked the eggs before because there were some larvae that was well along in development. Whew, that's a relief.
I have read that, when marking a queen for the first time, it's a good idea to practice first on some drones. Now I have several marked drones in my hive. HaHa. Now it was time to find the queen. I looked at each frame carefully, only to get to the last one and not find her. So, I went back through them again scanning what seemed like each bee.and found her on frame 8. She was a little bit skiddish of going into the marking tube, but she finally went in and I was able to get her marked and released back on the frame that she came off of.
I have noticed that some of my drones have been flying out of the hive today and yesterday. I can only assume that this means it is now swarm season.
I did take a picture of some of the new, or newly reused comb that they are making.
They have started attaching the old comb, that was tied into the frames, so I have now removed all of the fishing line that was holding it in place. It seems all is well so far.
Till next time, thanks for reading.
James
