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The link above will allow you to see one of two queens we were able to find in today’s deep hive inspection.  Please give this link time to load up as it is a movie!  (Thanks to Erin for capturing this great moment for us)  This queen happens to belong to my grandson Jax,  and her name is Queen Kassia I.  The good news is we found solid evidence of healthy queens in all of our hives today.   Because of all the rain we have had, nectar flow is not good right now, so I am recommending that everyone continue to feed their bees 1:1  sugar water for the next two weeks. At that time we will evaluate and determine if we can stop feeding.  Drawing out new comb is one of the most difficult tasks for our bees and feeding them will lessen the stress.  This means the nectar that is found can be stored and made into honey rather than having to feed all the inside workers.

All our hives are doing well and have no hive beetles present.  It was interesting to see how each hive was different, which also strengthened the idea of having an apiary for our community to learn about and sustain bees.  In two weeks we will go in again and see where we are.  Meantime our next big challenge will be to begin our attack on mites, which all bees have.  Controlling mites will have the greatest impact on our being able to successfully winter our bees.  The next lessons I will be posting on our blog will deal with these pests, how they affect our bee populations so negatively, and ways we can control them.