**a bee in the sky**

On Sunday I inspected both of my colonies. It was cloudy out, and 74 degrees F. I inspected both of them right before a thunderstorm, not the best time to inspect a colony of bees! But they were both relatively calm, and I received no stings! I took a TON of pictures of Hive Anne, you will see all 10 frames below. They have been doing a lot better, they are building more comb more quickly. After staying of 7 frames of comb for the past 11 weeks, they now have 9 frames with comb! Six of them are filled from top to bottom with comb, three of them are either 1/2 way filled or barely started and the tenth one is empty, but hopefully to be filled soon. So it seems that more hours in the sun can help with nosema! I am a bit worried about the queen. It seems to me that the brood is very spotty[pictures below], but perhaps Anne is still recovering. I will let the bees be! If they think they need a new queen, so be it! These honeybees have lived for thousands of years without the intervention of man, so why are they so suddenly dependent on us to provide them with excellent queens? I want my bees to survive in mother nature’s way, not in man’s way. And I will let them bee.

I have started to feed my bees, Bella has been sucking it all down so fast that I can’t seem to keep up with them! Anne is taking their time, I think because they already have some stores. I also came up with a great way to feed bees without punching holes in lids or having dead, drowned bees. Just get a bag of cheap plastic beads and float them on top of the syrup. Ta-da!

Here are some pictures of queen cells, the queen herself, brood, crazy comb and many other things. In the dark picture, if you click it to enlarge it and look closely, you will see the queen towards the bottom of the frame. Enjoy!