Natural Comb

This is our hive that is made up of the swarm we caught on our butterfly bush. We fed them syrup to help them build comb. Well, they've not only built comb INSIDE the hive, they're building it everywhere! This comb was attached to the bucket the syrup was in on top of the frames. I've wanted to do natural beekeeping since the beginning, but my husband wanted to do foundation. After seeing all this beautiful, natural comb....I have the itch again. I'm going to do more research and start my own foundation-less, natural comb hive. I've read natural comb helps keep mite populations down. While we haven't noticed a mite problem...anything we can do to help prevent this issue is a bonus in my book!

Queen Cell

This picture was from our queenless hive. If you remember, we had added a frame of brood to this hive after losing the queen we had seen. We are guessing she was eaten by a bird or bug while she was out on her mating flights.  Well, the bees found a young larvae (less than 36 hours old), that they liked and have made a queen. This picture is a capped queen cell. The time for her to hatch, harden up, take her mating flight(s), and begin laying is about 28 days. We waited about 30 days before we checked on her again. We had high hopes this queen would actually come back home.  We prayed our luck would change with our queens!

Bees Being Bees

My best friend lives in Nevada and saw these sweet girls working in her plants. She grabbed her camera and took some pictures to share with me. You'll notice these ladies don't have pollen in the pollen pockets on their legs which means they are most likely gathering nectar to make that sweet, delicious honey! I just love these pictures of bees being bees!