Bombus!

This lovely big fat black and yellow bumble bee was working our California poppies hard yesterday!

Maybe a bombus californicus!

5/23/16 Inspection

Things are looking very good! Lots of activity.  Foragers headed into both hives loaded with pollen!

Raven: Went all the way through and found good amount of capped worker brood, a few drone cells, and larva. I saw, for the first time, a baby bee emerging from her cell! Triumph!! I think they are queen right!

There were a few empty bars, so I moved them on the other side of the follower board to reduce the size of the hive.

Lone Star: Also looking good with lots of capped brood, larva, and a few drone cells. I saw my second baby bee emerging!!

Hooray for the bees!!

4/18/16 Lots of action

Went into both hives and did an oxalic acid dribble. Took one bar of larva from Lone Star and put it in Raven just to increase their chances of raising a new queen and having enough worker bes.

Took a couple of pounds of honey by mistake. I didn't have a follower board on the end of Raven, and they had built comb along the wall, I removed it. I also set some bars on the truck gate, and one melted and fell over. So I brought it in too. I saved the good stuff and put the rest out for the bees to clean up.

4/15 Hive Inspection

Tom came to help me and we went though Raven. Lots of honey, lots of drones, no worker brood, no larva. It looks like the queen is gone. Damn. We did find a queen cell, empty on the end so it looked like she successfully emerged. So maybe they raised a new queen. She'll need a couple of weeks for her nuptial flight and to start laying and for those eggs to hatch and emerge. So I'll check in a couple of weeks on the 29th or after we get back from Gibson's birth.

We also did a mite check. Way too high. No ants.