Queen Kylie! Top Bar Hive day 23.

Not too sure what the bees have been up to these last few days, it has been very windy. I have been out the door before they got up, and it has been dull and windy when I returned from work.  Saw a few brave ones taking on the gales, but generally, they seem to have been mostly huddling. Although, the weather has been very politely keeping the rain to the evenings.



25 May 2011 from end entrance.

 Above is a pic I took this evening, not sure if its just me, but there seems to be less bees, but I anticipate a slight decline in population until the new brood can make up the numbers.  Loving the look of the comb though.  Not sure if I should leave them another week, or open them up this weekend. I am not convinced at how informative an open inspection would be at this time.

I love this pic taken from underneath, you can clearly see the layers of comb with bees working back to back inbetween them (beespace). The small comb you can see from the pic above is at the top of the image.

On another note, happy as I am with my hive and I am loving my bees, I have been listening to Phil Chandler, the Barefoot Bee-keeper's podcast for the best advice on organically and ethically managing my hive.   I have just listened to his advice on importing bees and I feel very naughty now.  I was so keen on getting started and the availability of British Queens was rare, I have an Australian Queen, (Kylie) and  she has been working ever so hard, but I would be remiss not to pass on his advice about not importing bees into the UK, thus preventing the migration of the diseases that they bring with them. Not an intentional flaunting of the Biobee Guru's advice, and I will be paying more attention in future. Now I have a working hive, the intention is to allow them when the time occurs to create their own replacement, who will be acclimatised to our very special weather in the UK.   Although, to play devils advocate, I was listening to another pod caster who's advice was to avoid 'pedigree' bees as they could become highly strung in a similar vain to pedigree dogs. The Queen bee is mother to all the bees in the hive and the Queen Bee that will ultimately supercede her, when she starts to fail, will be her daughter, and all the drones in the hive will be her sons.  In days when bees were more widespread there was more of a chance of the Queen being mated with drones from differing colonies, to strengthen the genetics.  Although the last thing I would want to do is bring in a disease, I can see the attraction of bringing in some differing genetics to strengthen our weakening colonies. Please feel free to correct me, I would in no way profess to be an expert, just an uneducated, still a keen learners, opinion.