Observation Hive Update, Mid October 2015

    On my last post I mentioned how the bees in the observation hive have been drawing out comb on the lowest of their four deep frames.  I hadn't noticed any other activity on that lowest frame other than the bees storing some orange and yellow pollen and a little bit of nectar/sugar syrup.  I was gone for about four days over the weekend on a hunting trip to Eastern Washington. When I returned to the Beez Neez on Tuesday, October 20th, I discovered that Queen Abigail the First had begun to lay eggs  in that lowest frame.  Based on the fact that the bees had just started capping the larvae,  the queen started laying eggs on this frame nine days ago.  A worker honeybee is three days as an egg and six days as a larva.

The bees just started capping the larvae which means the first eggs were laid 9 days ago

Note the white larvae curled up in the cells at the top of this photo

     Honeybee eggs are very tiny and not particularly easy to spot, especially when the frame is fixed inside the observation hive such that I can't turn it to get the sun just right shining down into the bottom of the cells.  I keep the observation hive covered with 2 inch thick styrofoam insulation when someone isn't actively gawking at them. That helps the bees incubate the brood at 92 degrees Fahrenheit.  Since they are covered most of the day and I really don't have time to watch them all day long anyhow, I had missed the queen starting to lay in the lower frame.  The larvae grow at a tremendous rate.  The new larvae start out about a fifth the size of a grain of rice.  Six days later they are a full grown larvae ready to spin their cocoon.  Imagine growing something as small as a rabbit into the size of a rhinoceros in just six days.

     Now that the bees have expanded the brood nest downward, the bees will have a lot more incentive to finish drawing out the comb on that lower frame.  I noticed that they had made some progress on that lower frame while I was gone.  One side has gone from 70% drawn to about 85% drawn in just four days.  October is a difficult time to persuade the bees to draw out comb. They are normally starting to hunker down for winter in October.  They often are not even inclined to produce wax to cap the last honey they bring into the hive in the fall. I guess they generally use the LIFO inventory method when it comes to honey storage and usage, Last In, First Out. In this particular case, they need more comb and I have provided them with lots of sugar syrup they can use to produce wax. Over the past few weeks, these bees have also capped about half of their stored honey.  A month ago, just a few weeks after I had placed the bees into the observation hive, the frames were pretty full of honey, but very little of it was capped.

This honey has been capped within the past few weeks

    I have been watching the weather forecast pretty closely. I don't want to miss the arrival of our first cold snap. I need to make sure the bees are unable to leave the hive once the weather turns cold. We've had a fairly warm and dry October thus far.  I see a lot of foragers who aren't bringing back pollen so they must be finding some nectar some where. They are going through a quart of sugar syrup every three days.  I'm not sure how much of their stored honey is from nectar as opposed to the sugar syrup.   I would estimate their current honey reserves at about ten pounds. That probably wouldn't be enough if they were spending the winter outside in a nuc box. It is probably more than adequate for their circumstances.  These bees will have access to a sugar syrup feeder all winter long.

   I'm a little curious as to what they will do once the comb on the lower frame is completely drawn out.  There has been just a little comb building activity on the top frame.  Maybe the comb building activity will transfer to the top frame.   I have noticed a change of activity in the third frame from the bottom.  It appears that they are backfilling the empty cells with honey as the capped brood emerges.  The queen laying in the lower frame may constitute a transfer of laying activity to the lower frame as opposed to an increase in her laying.