My Girls...

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all 4,000 of them, but who's counting.  Opened up the top bar hive (TBH) to check out the girls and their progress on drawing out comb, and to check on the queen to see if she was doing her job... making more bees.  Beeboy helped me and took the pics.  Gonna show you bar by bar starting with the last going to the first.  The first being the one closest to the entry.

Remember, they were installed on 4/15, only 10 days ago.  They have been busy lil girls.

Bar 7.  (but marked 8, long story) There is no comb on this bar, but you can see what is called festooning.  This when the bees hang on each other by their legs and the ones in the center begin to draw comb.  They sorta measure where and how the comb is going to hang off the bar.  Bees are so cool.

Bar 6.  Small comb and festooning on either side.

Bar 5.  Full comb loaded with bees.

Bar 4.  First shot is right after i pulled it out.  Second is several seconds.  Notice how the bees scatter. This bar had some pollen up near the top of the comb which is the orange.    We also noticed how yellow the whole comb was.  Beeboy wasn't sure why, and thought maybe it was from dandelion.

Bar 3 is the first bar with capped brood.  There were also eggs on this bar.  Can't see any eggs in the pics, but they are there.  Second pic is a closeup.

Bar 2.  Lots of brood.  Notice in the second pic, the 4 bullet looking cells.  Those are drone (male) cells. The males of the hive usually number from 200-400.  They don't forage, tend brood, guard the hive, or help in the hive at all.  Their only purpose is to spread the genetics of the hive.  They don't mate with the hives queen, but with other virgin queens from other hives.  A queen may mate with 10-15 drones during her first flight.  All from other hives.  When there are too many drones, or in preparation for winter, the girls drive them out of the hive, to their certain death.  It's tough being a male in the midst of 40,000+ females.  In the last pic, notice the yellow comb mentioned earlier.

 B1.  This is the bar closest to the entrances.  Beeboy smoked the comb to get a good look at it.  Capped brood and hatched cells.  We didn't see the queen on any of the bars, but we know she was there due to the newly laid eggs.  There was a little capped honey and some storage of nectar, but that comes a little later.  I am feeding them sugar water for food. Right now, priority of the hive is building comb, and raising baby's.  The big nectar flow starts early May and runs thru end of June.  That is when they will be foraging heavy.  Another flow happens in fall.  The next few pics are taken inside the hive looking toward the front.  Top bar hives are a more natural way to raise bees for pollination and sustainability, not honey production.

And my favorite picture of the day...