Blueblood Hive Inspection 4-1-14 Queen Video Compilation

[blueblood]

It was near 70 today.  Went out to the yard and checked six langs.  One looked like it could be queenless with no brood and very little to no pollen in the cells.  However, the second gave me hope because it looked pretty much the same but I found a queen.  The queen was hard to spot since she was so small (virgin queen? young?).  So, maybe I missed her.  But, the next three were moderately full of bees, honey, pollen, capped brood and large queens.  I found everything happening on the stop deep on all hives.  No drone cells or drones as of yet.  The 5th hive looked just as good as the previous.  I saw evidence of a queen so I closed it up.  It was getting cool and it was late.  The bees were getting a little pissy.

Anyway, here is a video compilation of the three four queens I did locate of the six hives I checked out.  The first part of the video is of the small queen.  There is one video where I see something white at the end of her abdomen.  Later, in another video you can see the queen laying in the cells.  I figure the white object I saw was pronounced because egg laying is full throttle.

[LazyBkpr]

Good Eyes Blue!   Good video too!  Thank you for doing such fine work!!!

[G3farms]

Got some good looking queens.

See any drones yet?

[blueblood]

Thanks Lazy, G.  No, no drones yet but I suspect it will be soon.  I met a new keep in a city south of me a little ways and he just saw his first one this week.  If you look at the second photo, you will see two bees in the center of the photo with mites on their thorax.

[Perry]

Great video Dave.  That last one, is that the one you didn't see a queen in? That one had a roar to it.

[blueblood]

Nope, the last video was after I put all the frames back in the last hive I checked that had a big ole queen in it.  The smoke had them in a frenzy.  I smoked them good since it was evening.  They were all home.  I didn't film or photograph the first hive I suspect is queenless.  That hive was loud and intermittently fluttering their wings and busy all over the place.  My hives with a queen looked like they had purpose, were more still.