Day 40

We opened the hive today, 15 days after opening it last time and finding the new Queen. Not 100 percent sure what we found: plenty of honey (capped and uncapped), lots of pollen. Tons of pebbly drone cells, lots of larvae of various stages, maybe a few regular capped cells? We went through the seven bars and didn't see the queen, but then Claire spotted her as we replaced the bars in the original spots. She looked good! We were glad that she was on comb with no drone cells... Is that good???

Look for queen in the 3 pix before the last 2 shots of the honey-- she has the long tapered gold abdomen...

Pictures from first 3 weeks

Day 25

We're still on tenterhooks hoping all is right in the hive. The population is definitely dwindling which of course would be happening naturally. No clear evidence that Queen is in there and laying. This morning I did find three small lens shaped wax caps on the floor – does this mean brood are emerging? The cool weather has made us reluctant to open behind, but maybe this afternoon is the time.

Day 14

What's happening in the hive? Every morning we press our noses against the Plexiglass window to see what's going on. When I have time, I sit by the entrance and watch the girls come and go. These days we're watching for what we call "pollen girls" to come back to the hive with their pollen baskets (little pouches on their back legs) stuffed full of pollen. It looks like they're wearing orange Floaties on the back legs.

Inside the hive we can see that they're building lots and lots of beautiful comb (see below). We have seven top bars with comb so far. But what we can't tell, which is maddening, is whether the queen is actually laying eggs in the comb. To ascertain this, we'd have to smoke and open up the hive, pull out some top bars, and look for the eggs which are about the size of half a grain of rice. I think, in Warre hive fashion, we'll just leave everything be.