BEES.....

Steve decided to go into his bee hive this week to check on his bees.
He only has two hives left now and was concerned that one of the hives no longer had a queen in it...
His fears were proven right, so in his attempt to try and rectify the problem he decided to see if he could encourage his weak hive to produce their own queen by transferring freshly laid eggs from his good hive into the weaker hive.

He achieved this by using a frame which had both freshly laid female eggs and half formed queen cells.  The process involved shaking all the bees  off, bringing the frame inside and using a pointed probe, (from his tool box) and the good lighting on the dining room table.

He had to hurry when he started to see some new bees breaking through their capping and emerging to begin their lives.  Normal worker bees (female) take about three weeks to hatch, and a queen bee, fed on royal jelly, takes about two weeks to hatch.  Steve will have to check on the development again next weekend.

It was quite interesting to watch them emerge but also quite stressful getting these photos.....

Ah Ohh! better hurry a worker bee is emerging.

A wider shot showing empty cells and some with different coloured pollen (white cream & yellow). Note probe on the right.

The empty cells mean that quite a few will have hatched and the queen has not yet laid in these cells. Note the edges of the cells have bee cleaned up by the worker bees. Note eggs - 3 cells SW of bee and on the left of the yellow pollen cell South of the hatching bee.

Both retracted a little and taking a rest for the next big push. Note cells at top right with jagged edges from freshly hatched bees.

Time for another push (one on the left). Probe points to another just breaking the capping. Time to get a move on Steve, otherwise you'll have bees everywhere.

Almost there!

A twist to the left and ... ? The one on the right is still resting!

Taking a rest after all the effort of chewing and pushing its way out. The neighbor decides to put in an effort.

Note the antennae of the bee just starting at the centre bottom of image.

The young bee is quite pale and will soon assume her job as a nurse bee tending the larvae by making and feeding them a royal jelly for three days then a mixture of honey & pollen to become a worker bee.

 Nice to note this down.... I have not seen the bees emerging like this before... but then again,  I don''t like getting stung as I usually react to it so try and avoid them where possible...