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.