Queen Anne's Lace is a Droughtflower: or, the Thriving of the Beez.
So I muddled down to the hives yesterday, and found myself waist-deep in Queen Anne's Lace.
So much for the drought depriving my poor gals of their proper diet.
And with the pond beside them, they had not died of thirst either. I had offset their lids from their boxes, and in some cases the boxes themselves, to let the air through, and this seemed to have helped.
Victoria's hive is still A#1, with hundreds of ladies in the doorway and others going in and out in the gaps. While they hadn't actually started drawing out wax on the upper foundation I had left for them, they were crawling all over it - I could see their little apiarchtectural minds plotting, I really could. Meanwhile, they had used propolis to seal together each and every segment of their hive. I was, like, whoa, okay, I ain't gonna look at the lower box, no problem!
Elizabeth II's hive is also flourishing in its own way. (I'm going to call her Libby2 from now on.) I think those kids will be ready for a queen excluder and an upper box of their own next week. The gals have built up in nearly every single frame that I had left them with.
Of course, I couldn't check the lower box. They, too, had been busy with the propolis. I went to lift the top one off, and both boxes came up.
Finally, Anne's family is thriving at last! The adoptees and the stepmother are doing a great job, and there are bees all over the place! I need to prepare them a second lower for the next time I go out, but I can take a deep breath: they will not go extinct.
And that is the news from the HaramBees at the Horse Ranch.
Wordwitch originally posted this at http://wordwitch.dreamwidth.org/155666.html. Please comment there using OpenID. Current comment count is
So much for the drought depriving my poor gals of their proper diet.
And with the pond beside them, they had not died of thirst either. I had offset their lids from their boxes, and in some cases the boxes themselves, to let the air through, and this seemed to have helped.
Victoria's hive is still A#1, with hundreds of ladies in the doorway and others going in and out in the gaps. While they hadn't actually started drawing out wax on the upper foundation I had left for them, they were crawling all over it - I could see their little apiarchtectural minds plotting, I really could. Meanwhile, they had used propolis to seal together each and every segment of their hive. I was, like, whoa, okay, I ain't gonna look at the lower box, no problem!
Elizabeth II's hive is also flourishing in its own way. (I'm going to call her Libby2 from now on.) I think those kids will be ready for a queen excluder and an upper box of their own next week. The gals have built up in nearly every single frame that I had left them with.
Of course, I couldn't check the lower box. They, too, had been busy with the propolis. I went to lift the top one off, and both boxes came up.
Finally, Anne's family is thriving at last! The adoptees and the stepmother are doing a great job, and there are bees all over the place! I need to prepare them a second lower for the next time I go out, but I can take a deep breath: they will not go extinct.
And that is the news from the HaramBees at the Horse Ranch.
Wordwitch originally posted this at http://wordwitch.dreamwidth.org/155666.html. Please comment there using OpenID. Current comment count is