Brood, A Bee is Born, and Her Majesty!

Second hive inspection today ... this was an exciting one.    I was happy to see capped brood and larvae.   That meant the queen was doing well and we'd soon have more babies.

I didn't get a single shot of the larvae in proper focus ... but though blurry, you can indeed see them in the bottom of quite a few cells:

Now, yesterday, when I was checking sugar levels, I did see a varroa mite on one bee.    Inspecting the board in the hive bottom I found several more.   From what I can gather, nothing to worry about too much at this point as there were only a few, but I am worried to be finding them so soon .. will have to keep a close eye on this and research how best to deal with them in a natural way.     Well today, I say a small hive beetle.    They are fast little critters!    He was hiding out in a fold of wax in one of the frames I was inspecting, so I poked him with the hive tool and he immediately fell on the top of a frame ... where he was quickly dispatched by one of the bees!    The reaction from the bee was very fast!

As if that wasn't enough excitement for one inspection, I got to see a new bee emerging from a cell!    The arrow below shows the new bee just starting to poke through the capping:

The workers were walking all over her and I couldn't tell if they were oblivious or trying to help ... from what I read, I think they don't help the workers emerge, only the drones.

I this next picture she has just emerged ... her hair is a little lighter / less yellow than the others.

And just like brand new baby chicks, her hair is a mess!   

About the only thing that could have made this inspection go better would be to find the queen .. lo and behold, she was on the next frame I pulled out!    Now that I've spotted her, it's kind a hard to miss her!   She definitely stands out and unlike the other bees that just walk all over each other, they are much more respectful of her.   They tend to part way for her as she comes through.

Now, something I really should have done but haven't yet, is keep track of what is in each frame ... would be nice to see how they are progressing to fill things out.    This time there were two frames untouched on one side and I think three or maybe three 1/2 or maybe even four .. I just don't recall.   But suffice it to say, they aren't using too many frames just yet ...I am hoping that now that there are bees emerging from capped brood the population will rapidly start picking up!