I opened the small swarm nuc to make sure all was going well and to determine if I needed to move them into their own hive box before I leave for 10 days. They are busy and working the frames they have, but aren't yet crowded, but I may go ahead and move them to make sure they have enough room while I am gone.
I pulled out a frame to examine it and there right in front of me was a bee emerging from her cell for the first time. I was caught in a dilemma. She is supposed to emerge into the dark and here I was confusing her reality because I had the frame out in the light on a frame rack.
I couldn't stand it and had to take a few pictures before I put her back into the safety of the dark nuc. You can see in the first picture that she has barely chewed the cell open. The opening is much larger in the third picture. By the fourth picture she has raised her body almost out of the cell.
I put her frame back in the nuc so her emergence might be more "normal,"
or as normal as life can bee when a beekeeper keeps intruding on your world.
Linda,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the info on the solar wax melter! I have one of those coolers out in the building now, and am going to use that for my next super, which will be crush and drain instead of extracted (I'm hoping to get some comb honey).
Check out my blog, and look at the difference in the honey I just extracted. It is dark! Has yours been this dark?
Steve