Honey is Heavy!

It was such a pleasure to get home from the steambath that is London at the moment; hot, humid, sticky, unbearable London. Sat in the garden with Guy and had a lovely supper with a glass of red wine. I think it was a mistake though, to check on the bees after a glass of wine. I was just a tad squiffy, and the ladies were less than impressed ...

Yeeeouch; two stings through my trousers onto my legs!

I had wondered what sort of progress was happening in the Super; after seeing traces of foundation being drawn out by the bees last time, I had hopes of a little honey harvest. But this time I was disappointed - there has been no change at all. No more drawn-out honeycomb, no honey at all. Aah well!

Onto the brood box, and still - no change on Frame 1. Both sides remain pristine and untouched. They just do not like this frame. I am too new and inexperienced yet to even begin to hazard a guess why. All of the rest of the frames have lots of activity going on; lots and lots of capped brood, lots and lots of fat juicy white larvae waiting for their caps. And some trace of small new rice grain eggs to prove the Queen's presence, alive and well and active, in the hive up to three days ago. But not a lot.

And Frame 10 Side B is simply honey all over; it is the heaviest frame to pick up. Who would've guessed it - honey is heavy!

Some interesting things that I saw during this visit:

• On one frame, the bees had constructed what looked like a cavern; it almost felt like they were hiding something from view. Again - this is not the first time I have felt this way ...
  
  
• On another frame, some capped drone cells; clearly domed shapes protuding higher than the normal female worker bee capped cells
  
  
• The delight of seeing several female worker bees being born - breaking the cap and carefully and slowly emerging from their cells
  
  
• Strange large droplets of liquid - could it be rain? could it be "sweat" from the heat of the carefully maintained temperature of 35 deg C? Or was it merely nectar or honey?
  
  
• Several small supercedure cells in various places; wonder if I'm meant to do anything at all with these ...

The bees were angry at being disturbed. And it was perhaps too late in the day to be visiting, at 7pm. But Guy was wonderful - brave enough to get close and take a picture of each and every single frame, so that I could scrutinise details close up on the computer screen later that evening.

With stings burning on my legs, I closed up the hive again and retreated to the bedroom to have my wounds checked on, accompanied by some gentle teasing and a great deal of ribald laughter.

This beekeeping can be a lot of fun!


A perfect frame - capped female worker brood in the centre surrounded by loads of honey supplies around the rim










Frame 10 Side B - just tons and tons of honey












What are the ladies hiding in that little cave?













See the male drone cells? Just left of centre ...















See the female worker bees being born - two of them breaking out of their cells on the right of this picture?















Here too - a female worker bee emerges from her cell on the left of this picture