The Queen Is Laying!

The luring hum of the bees is too much for me to resist - I have been enjoying daily venures into The Glen (as i have dubbed it) just to sit and watch the comings and going of the girls.  They seem to be bringing in quite a lot of pollen, ranging in all colors from luminescent yellow, to orange, to the occasional pellet of crimson red.  I try to contain myself and leave them to their busy work, but I cannot seem to help but prop up the lid from time to time and witness their inner workings.

Last week the ladies of Twilight Bellidanse skipped town to spend a week taking classes at Tribal Fest in Sabastapol California.  Before embarking on our journey, I decided to do my first complete hive inspection to check for brood and to make sure the hive was progressing well. 

I suited up, and with Chris in tow (he helps with courage) head out to The Glen.  The bees were calm as ever as we pulled each frame one by one and checked for eggs or larvae.  There was plenty of pollen checkering the comb, and even more shimmering liquid well on its way to becoming honey!  The frames were quite crowded with bees, making it difficult to see what was going on, and I became quite concerned when in our first run through of the frames we did not locate any brood...

My next thought was to check for the queen, so again we began pulling and scrutinizing each frame...I was sweating a bit, worried that something had gone terribly awry...but then we found her!  Briefly, and then she was again under a pile of bees.  Logic told me that the frame with the queen would likely be the frame with brood, so we gently pushed the bees aside and took a closer look. 

At first all I saw was the shimmering wetness of stored nectar...then we spotted a few cells that looked, well, different.  Not wet.  I angled the sun into the cells for a better view and looked very closely...and was awestruck to see a tiny, pearly white larvae curled up in the bottom of the cells!  It felt like the joy of a mother (or so I would imagine, hah) as I stood there witnessing the first generation of new bees developing in the hive.  What a beautiful sight to behold!  We quickly sealed the hive back up, and I ran ecstatically home to tell everyone of what I had seen. :)

Well, our trip to California was wonderful, but my thoughts did drift frequently back home to The Glen with the singing bees...it feels good to be back, and of course I was immediately lured by that humming song back to hive for a follow up inspection.  The bees are starting to cap their brood, and I can expect new little workers to be emerging within the next few weeks!

The Solaris Hive

The Bees Have Landed!

I got the call from Chris last Friday while I was at work: the bees had arrived! This was the moment I had been waiting and dreaming about for months...and with over 2 hours before I was scheduled to get off, I was hardly able to contain my excitement! Luckily, I found a staff to relieve me so I was able to rush home and check them out. Here's what they looked like when I got there:

I can only imagine how happy the postman must have been to be taking a ride with 12,000 bees!  Hah! Tya had tried to warn him the day before the deliverey, but I don't think her "we're expecting a box of bees to be arriving any day now" was really registering with him...Oh, we really are an odd bunch here at The Warrens...

So, we spent a few minutes psyching ourselves up, Tayissa hurried to finish sewing up our bee hats (yeah, that might be a good thing to have, right?), and we were out the door to introduce the girls to their new home. Just as we were walking out the door the clouds split and the sunshine came pouring down (just for us, it seemed)...Tayissa was hit with a stroke of inspiration, and our hive found its name: The Solaris Hive.

Despite all of the time spent psyching ourselves up, the installation went smoothly, with neither a hitch nor a sting! The bees were mellow and seemed to take to their new home wonderfully!

Jamila came by the next day and brought with her some beautiful ground cover to plant all around the hive. We enjoyed a lovely Beltane outside with our hands in the earth, putting in Lily of the Valley and Oaxalis, and creating a peaceful glen next to the hum of the hive.

Yesterday we were out again to check on the hive and see if the queen had been released from her queen cage. The sun was again shining and the bees were so much more active! It was an exhilerating experience, standing in the midst of a cloud of buzzing bees! Once again the girls proved themselves to be friendly, and far too busy to worry about us milling around their hive. The queen was released and the workers were already starting to pull comb! It took a few minutes, but we were even able to locate the queen on one of the frames, and boy was she beautiful! She was quick, however, and scurried back under a pile of bees before we could snap this picture:

 So far everything seems to be going well, and I am so incredibly excited about this new adventure. It is enthralling to be near them and to hear their beautiful vibrations.