Whats that wormy thing?

We went to see the bees today as we had to move the sugar solution away from them. Too much of that and the honey will taste a bit funny. Though of course this year we are unlikely to taste it ourselves so not sure what we were worrying about. The bees have to have it to see them through the winter since they have only just started this lark and need to build reserves.

They have been busy but I realised today I am not sure what I was looking at. The brood box should have eggs – Yes, saw those, Larvae – Yes, think so and capped cells with larvae growing in them, soon to become bees. Mmmm, I am not sure about those. There was lots of things going on, which I am going to have to investigate.

I am pretty sure there was honey, and capped cells but there were also black cells, bit of a worry and one cell with a funny looking worm thing in it!!!

Drone are male bees who fertilise the queen and look after her, they do not sting. The workers are of course female and go out foraging. There is only ever one queen at a time, when more than one appears there is a showdown.

We also managed, since we are newbies to anger the bees a bit. We pushed them off the top of the frame with the hive tool (pointy thing used to lever the hive open as it gets stuck down with propolis). We were very gentle but they didn’t like that much and started buzzing quite a bit. I wished we had set the smoker alight then but we hadn’t bothered. Learning point number 2 light the smoker before you open the hive.