Recovery

We had another bear attack a few weeks ago, this one on the two hives in our own yard.  Eric did his best to slap the hives back together, and then I picked up queen cells form a local master beekeeper, to help the hives recover with strong, new queens.

This afternoon, after face painting and balloon twisting in Ramsey, Eric and I finally had a non-rainy, fairly sunny-ish day to check on the bees!  Miracle of miracles!

So we took advantage of the opportunity and checked to see what was doing.

In the first photo, you can see a big empty space in the hive, which the bees are filling in with honeycomb.  Bees don't like spaces, and fill it - the larger ones with comb, the smaller ones with propolis.  This space was caused by the mess Eric faced when he put the hives back together post-attack, and he wasn't able to get all ten frames in there.  We're really going to have to figure out what to do about that, but right now, we're happy to let them have it so we don't kill the pupae in there and diminish their impending population.  In that photo, you can also see the very top of the queen cell that Eric installed, that green plastic cap is what it's attached to.  In the second photo is the bottom view of the same queen cell, with a nice round hole.  The queen hatched out, and hopefully is prepping for mating or is working on mating. 

We question what's going on a bit, because although we saw brood, we also saw a LOT of queen cells on that hive, built by the colony's workers themselves.  They're sealed and not hatched yet.  You can see them in the third photo - the ones hanging down looking like peanuts.  The bees build them out and down like that because queen bees need to grow bigger than workers, and will need that space.

In photo 4, you can see capped over honeycomb cells, which contain worker pupae.  We can tell by the way the caps look.  They're tan, rather than white (which would contain honey), and flat, rather than bumps (which would contain drones).  In the open cells, you can also see larvae, white worm-like bee babies.  The ones that pretty much fill their cells are obviously older than the ones that have smaller larvae set farther in.

Happily, in one of the photos, I also got a really nice shot of a drone, photo 5.  Those are the male bees, identifiable by their rounder, fatter abdomens (not really visible in the photo), and also their HUGE eyes, which are visible.  Aren't they crazy?

The sixth and seventh photos are just great shots of larvae and capped worker brood, in which pupae are busy growing, respectively.

And the eighth and ninth photos are photos of foragers coming on back home.  You can see the bright yellow pollen packed onto their back legs, and if you look closely, you can see one with red pollen.  I'd love to know what flora that's from!

Somewhere in the middle of it all, I was being a bit of a brute, and took two stings to my upper, inner thigh through my jeans.  I'm glad to have the first ones over with, and with some apple cider vinegar topically and a dose of prednisone, I'm absolutely fine.

The end result?  Both hives look good, and we added honey supers, hoping that they give us a crop this year.  The resource hive that Eric used to make a small colony looks amazing, so we put on a second level.  And since we had so many more frames with queen cells (more than the one in the photo here), we took a few to try more colonies in two more resource hives.  Theoretically, we could have five hives by the end of the season.  That would be nice after all the losses!

There's a Reason I've Been So Quiet

Lots of reasons, actually.  They boil down to:  We've been busy!  Insanely busy.  And I've been downright lazy about keeping up here.  But at least now you get a ton of photos!

We had a warm spell back in the winter/early spring, which got the queen bees laying new brood early... and then a really cold snap that kept us from getting into the hives to do splits.  And then warmth... and then rain that again kept us from getting into the hives.

As a result, were dealing with swarms from all our hives for the entire spring and into the summer, in addition to the nucs we bought.  It was exhausting.  Eric was working from home a lot, and our friend Carol, who was a brand new beek and our mentee this season, also works from home, so they spent every day chasing swarms all over town.  We have one tree in the backyard we dubbed "the swarm tree," and at one point, it had three swarms in residence.

We weren't able to catch them all, and lost a lot of bees.  On top of that, we had bear attacks that took out six of the twenty-four hives to which we'd built up.  We tried combining, requeening, and did what we could.  It was a tough season that resulted in much more work and less honey than we anticipated, and us being down to eight hives now.  Fingers crossed they all make it through winter!

Agriculture is rough.  Love it anyway, even through the occasional tears.

On top of all of that, there's We Bee-lieve!  Eric and I have formed a NJ domestic nonprofit corporation to bring bees to kids and vice versa.  Feel free to visit the site or Facebook page (and "like" it to keep up with our doings!  We're on Instagram too!  The plan is doing bee talks, which we've already started (photos on the Facebook page and Instagram), plus put hives in depressed areas and teach kids everything from how to make seed bombs and what pollinators do all the way up to how to be beekeepers.  We have our five inaugural hives on the roof of the old Uniroyal factory in Passaic, NJ, and our initial investor is the land developer who owns that property.  It's amazing, and so far the girls up there are flourishing.  The hives are facing the Passaic River, where there must be a ton of forage, because over the spring and summer they were working their little wings off bringing in nectar and pollen.

In case we weren't missing enough sleep (Who needs sleep?  Sleep is boring!), we've taken on some new endeavors too!  First of all, Eric has gotten into fine woodworking.  You can see his wares at Blades and Board, and like his Facebook page if you're interested in also seeing his stuff that doesn't get listed for sale.  He's really amazingly talented.  In addition to the stuff on his site and FB page, we had a joint effort... he turned apple wood and walnut ornaments, and I painted them!  We got a ton of custom orders, which was fun but harrowing.  These are a few of the ones we did...

Of course, I couldn't let Eric have all the fun!  I've taken up some new avocations too!  It just so happens that Eric and I made some new friends from whom got these angora buns...

Washburne William, a/k/a "Wash"

Malcolm Lassie, a/k/a "Mal," together with Jack

How freakin' cute are they?... and this drop spindle...

... and what felt about two seconds later, I had this spinning wheel.

She's a 1960-something Ashford Traditional, named Serenity (you nerds will get the connection if you read the buns' names), and I made some more new friends in the process of the purchase!  This was in October, and I've been spinning ever since!  I'm completely addicted.  I even got to spin with some help from Santa when Eric and I were vendors at a holiday festival.

And for Chanukah, Eric got me the best gifts ever.

Those right there are two yarn dyeing books, which I plan to start reading imminently.  I'm really looking forward to putting the one on the left to good use right away, and the one on the right, which is about creating natural dyes, to good use come spring when things start blooming.  Apparently tickseed makes an amazing red-orange that Eric is really looking forward to.

In the middle is King Gumdrop, an out-of-print antique book (1916) I had as a kid, which has old candy recipes in the back!  And that little thing there is a remote shutter control for my DSLR.  Expect some amazing photos of the bees come spring!

Meanwhile, I think in the not too distant future, there will be yarn for sale!

These Go to Eleven

So... our apiary just expanded to nearly double what it was today.  If you're counting along, we started with two hives last spring, one of which died.  So we came into this spring with one hive, which we split.  We then bought three nucs, making five hives.  And Eric caught a swarm, making six.

And now?  They go to eleven.

Another local beekeeper has chosen to downsize his apiary from two locations to one, and was selling his hives.  Someone else bought six, we got five.  Five new (old, established) hives.  All at once.  Whoa!

Two went to the yard of friends, who are hosting them for us.  The funny thing is that the wife said yes, and then forgot to tell her husband!  Thankfully, he's got a good sense of humor and is really laid back, because he accepted the concept immediately, even saying, "this will be fun."  When we got there today, he'd dug up a bit of his lawn to make it flat to accommodate the hives, and spread mulch in front of them so his landscapers don't have to mow that area.  Perfect possible host for our girls!

The other three were planned for another yard in our town, but the logistics there didn't work out, so they're currently, temporarily, living in our yard until they can be moved, which should happen pretty shortly, since we've got a potential "forever home" for them already.

Yeah, I think we're real beekeepers now, just in case I had any residual doubts.

We're getting some honey this year... but just wait 'til next year's crop!

Just for Kicks

While Eric and I were planting a new peach tree out front, and new plants in our perennial gardens (which reminds me, I really should take photos to post), just for kicks I put my camera on the tripod in front of one of the hives for 20 minutes.

This was around 6 p.m., so not nearly as active as it gets at 3 p.m. in the midst of the afternoon heat and sun, but definitely shows how they behave when they're coming & going.

Thought I'd also throw in a couple shots of our tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers, which are very happy and soon to make our girls very happy too.

Lots more to come as progress is made!

Another Day with the Hives

Checked out our girls again today, again with happy results, mostly.

The Pooh hive is doing really, really well, building out honeycomb to the outer frames of foundation, but they haven't touched the honey super yet.  We really hope they notice it soon and start building!  Without honeycomb to fill... no honey in them!

Then, the Fish hive, which is also doing amazingly well, so well and so quickly that we added a honey super there too!  Fingers crossed!

The Wonderland hive is also doing well, but I have to apologize, because I'm a twit.  I forgot to charge the camera battery, and it died at the very beginning of the inspection.  Sorry 'bout that.  But they've got about 60% of the frames of their second brood box built out with honeycomb, and the brood looks good.  Not bad, since they consisted of just 4 built-out frames when we split them off from the Pooh hive, and considering the fact that we worried about them swarming and/or losing their queen.

So nice to have an uneventful inspection with the girls not finding a way to scare us!

Spring Fest!

Yesterday, Eric and I were so excited to represent the Northeast NJ Beekeepers Association at the Teaneck Creek Park Spring Fest Celebration.  We were given one of the awesome club tablecloths to use, as well as pamphlets, coloring books, and stickers from the club to hand out, but were actually worried our table would be boring and flat without more.  Silly us.

Like we weren't so excited we'd think of more to bring!

We brought my canopy, which was really smart, considering how hot and sunny it got on the blacktop.  And then we brought my beekeeping jacket and veil to hang from the canopy, which of course was interesting to non-beekeepers.

We got these amazing posters, one on pollination and the other on beekeeping, from Hudson Valley Bee Supply, got some poster frames for them, and they were a great eye-catcher.  Lots of people stopped to look at the photos and read about them.

On the table, we had the six different pamphlets, coloring/activity books, one of our empty new hives and an unused honey super with foundation frames in it, our smoker, hive tools, brush, frame rest, and my gloves, plus a shadowbox frame with our cool bee stages action figures and some information about the various stages of bee life.

And to prove we were there, there's us!

We had an amazing, amazing day.  With the exception of one man who seemed to only want to try and antagonize us (we didn't take the bait), everyone else was either excited about our booth or really looking for information.  It's terrific how many people either are interested in keeping bees or even just helping bees by planting the right flowers and herbs or putting out water for them; how many people were beekeepers, former beekeepers or friends or family of beekeepers.  We also met kids who ran the gamut from "I love bugs!" to being scared of bees until we were able to explain to them that yellowjackets are not bees.

The coolest, I think, was one young lady with really nifty pink glasses, who came over to ask us why, when she waved her arms and ran, the bumblebees flying around the area followed her.  Her dad was surprised when he found his daughter, who had just been running from bumblebees, over at our honeybee booth, but it made perfect sense to us!  Who better to come to with her question?

The biggest lament?  It's over and we want to do more!

Best Inspection Ever!

Another hive inspection yesterday, and we are so happy! We didn't go far into hives when we didn't have to, but we saw what we needed to see. First, the Pooh Hive.

Our girls have the second brood box almost completely drawn and a few are up in the honey super. It's not drawn at all yet, but we having a feeling that's coming very soon.

 Next, the Fish Hive.  Unfortunately, this video is a bit blurry, and for that, I apologize.

This is the nuc we got this year, and it's growing really quickly. We might actually get honey out of this hive this summer! 

Last, Wonderland Hive.  

This is the split we took from the Pooh hive, which last week we were afraid were going to swarm.  They didn't but all the queen cups and swarm cells are gone - the girls removed them and hung around, drawing out the comb instead.  Plus, we found young larvae, so we've got a queen!

After our inspections, we spent some time chatting with our neighbors across the street, and found out that the husband used to keep bees too!  They hadn't realized we were keeping bees, but were really excited.  They've got an amazing garden in their yard, with fruit trees, a huge vegetable garden, roses, basil, mint, and all sorts of other herbs and flowers.

Apparently, the other day, their son was over and noticed a ton of honeybees on the apple tree.  He commented about it to his dad, who insisted that they hadn't seen honeybees in years, and that it had to be bumblebees.  The son insisted no, it was honeybees, and now they figure it was our bees!  That's both sad and wonderful.  Wonderful that they're seeing our bees, and that our girls are getting their sustenance, and without pesticides there, as they don't spray.  Sad, as they hadn't seen honeybees in many years, which is just evidence of the frightening decline of the population.

Woo, Boy.

We inspected all three hives today, starting with the split, now known as the Wonderland hive, since I stayed up until 3:30 a.m. Thursday night painting the brood boxes with Wonderland themed paintings.

We were pretty horrified to find swarm cells and queen cells.  You'll see them in the video where I point them out; swarm cells are queen cells that hang off the very bottom of the brood frames.  The workers build them and move eggs into them to grow into new queens, generally when they haven't got enough space to live.  They usually build regular queen cells on the brood comb when their queen is failing or has died and the need a new one.  This hive had both, and one of the swarm cells is capped, meaning there's a queen pupa in there; another was not quite closed but had a larva inside, and a third was being worked on by a worker bee.

The possible problem here, we thought, was that when we did the split, we moved four drawn frames of comb, and then all the foragers returned that evening, and there simply wasn't enough space for them.  Bees don't see new foundation without drawn comb as space in which to live.  Alternatively, our queen could be dead, as we didn't see her.  Either way, we needed to figure out what to do, and fast.

For the time being, though, we put that aside and did the fish hive inspection.  This seemed much better, though we didn't go far into the hive; our girls were going strong and building out well, so we added a second brood box.

Last, but not least, the Pooh hive.  This is the original hive from which we took the split.  They're going strong and building well, so we added our first ever honey super!  Those are the shallower (medium) boxes and frames (as opposed to the deeps we use as brood boxes) that will eventually contain the honey we can take for us.  So excited!

Once we were all done, we called two mentor (and friend) beekeepers and described what was happening in the Wonderland hive.  Both were under the impression (from us, because we told them we saw young larva) that the hive was otherwise queen-right and set to swarm.  

One suggested we completely cut off all the swarm cells we could find and checkerboard the undrawn foundations in between drawn comb.  He suggested that it could possibly confuse the bees into not swarming and building the new foundation out.

The other suggested that we should do something similar, but without removing the swarm cells.  He also agreed we could try removing the frames with the swarm cells and some honey frames, and move them to a nuc box to create an additional split.  That's what we were considering and intending when we went back into the hive.

Upon second inspection, though, we decided to follow the advice of neither of our more experienced beekeeper friends and leave the hive as it was.  We had been so freaked out at seeing the swarm cells that it wasn't until the re-inspection that we realized we saw capped brood and older larvae, but no new, young larvae like we had the week before.  That seemed to mean that our queen was gone, and the girls were doing what they needed to make a new queen and save the colony.  We decided to let them.  If we're wrong and they do swarm, hopefully the new queen they leave behind is strong and good, and mates well.  And hopefully we catch them in one of the two swarm traps we've set up.  If not, then not.  At least if they truly need a new queen, we're leaving them the best opportunity to make themselves one.

As it is, this was the smallest, least advanced of the three colonies, not a huge loss if it's lost.  And splitting prevented the Pooh hive from swarming, which it may have been populated enough to do.

We shall see.

Three! Three Hives! Mwahahahahahaha!

We had the one overwintered beehive (we'll call it the Pooh hive) from last June.  It's still going strong.  In fact, for the very first time on April 11, we think we finally saw the queen.

And then on Wednesday evening, we got a second nuc for the fish hive.  It needed to be installed into the hive on Thursday, but it was way too cold in the morning to open them up and separate them, so I begrudgingly had to go off to the day job and let Eric do it later in the day.  Fortuitously, though, some of my college friends were down here from Massachusetts with their kids, and were very into meeting the bees.  So Eric had assistance  installing the nuc after all - from Evan & Hannah, the kids!

It's terrific how totally unconcerned they were, as Evan held a nuc lid full of bees, and Hannah kept trying to get them to walk on her gloved hands.  Meanwhile, their mother was close enough to take photos of the event... and their father was across the yard, looking like he was shielding his eyes from a car wreck.

Ha!

So if you're counting along, that's two active hives.  Not enough!  Plus, when we looked again, the Pooh hive was nearly bursting at the seams with bees.  Time for a split!

So Eric picked up a new queen from a fairly local bee supply place yesterday while I was face painting all day at the Tribeca Film Festival, and today, our first ever hive split!  Behold...



We're so excited about this!  Three active hives!  And even with the split, the strong one should still produce honey.  Fingers crossed people!

Back to the Bees

We had an ice storm last week.

Well, after the ice hit, I was terrified that all the bees were dead.  The next morning, I went out back and the entire front entrance was iced over, so I cleared it, and saw what looked like a sea of dead bees just inside the entrance & extending back.  We were really scared that they'd all died of starvation (the most common cause of colony decimation this time of year) or lack of ventilation when the entrance was covered, because they cannot have moisture.  Moisture is a much bigger bee-killer than the cold.

Happy surprise!  Yesterday when it got to 42F, although it was really overcast & even drizzling, we went into the hive to check on them.  Eric was smart & wore his veil.  I was a doofus and thought I wouldn't need veil or gloves.  Plus, I was in my big black winter coat, and they hate dark colors - they think you're a bear attacking.  My mistake.

We brought out what we have left of fondant and pollen patty for them, in case they needed it.

Took off the outer & inner cover, and there were a ton of them!  And they were ANNOYED.  They don't like being chilly and they don't like when it's not sunny, and they wanted us OUT.

We managed to get the inner cover back on & Eric snapped a photo through the hole before we closed it back up entirely (turns out they still had a bunch of fondant, meaning they'd had enough honey stores, so we didn't need to feed them yet), but unfortunately, they wouldn't let us photograph them with the inner cover off.

Still... so happy to see they're still there & OK!  In fact, Eric is working from home today (it's 52F & sunny) and says that the girls are going crazy in the warmth and sun.  Hundreds of the bees are flying, maybe more.  Did I mention how happy I am?  I'm just jealous I'm not home to see it!

Gonna buy more fondant and see if we can't feed them later this week.  Better to give them more than they need than let them starve.  It'd suck if they made it through winter ok & then died this late in the game.

Putting the Bees to Bed

A lot of people ask us where the bees stay during the cold, winter months.  I love that they're so concerned, as so are we!  Some have asked us if we bring them inside, put the hive in the garage, close up the openings, or what actually do we do with our girls?

The answer?  Pretty much nothing.

Crazy, right?

Well, it's not 100% nothing.  We did treat them for varroa mites for a month before it got too cold.  Varroa mites are the bane of a bee's existence.  And a beekeeper's too.  The mites are these horrendous tiny parasites (tinier than bees, obviously), with which all hives in the US are afflicted, but if the population gets too high, they'll kill an entire colony!  So we treated for mites, and then this past weekend went into the hive to remove the strips we used.

While in there, we got to see that our girls had a nice population going, and a bunch of full frames of honey in the top hive box.  We gave them some pollen and fondant to eat anyway, wished them well, and closed 'er back up.

That's it 'til spring, folks!  Now we just keep our fingers crossed that they make it through the winter, which here in NJ promises to be another brutally cold one, and see in the spring how they've fared.

In the meantime, the bees take care of themselves.  They've already kicked out their drones (the males, which are useless to them through the winter months when queens aren't mating and food - honey - is limited).  As it gets colder, the workers huddle in a ball around their queen, moving around the hive in sync to maintain body heat while they eat all the honey they've made throughout the spring and summer.  As long as there's enough honey to sustain them (plus the bit of fondant and pollen we provided), they should be ok when we check on them in the spring.  Through this whole time, they don't leave the hive.  Believe it or not, that also means that they don't go to the bathroom!  Bees are exceptionally clean critters and will not go to the bathroom in the hive.  Imagine all those little crossed legs!

If we do have an unseasonally warm day, one of those weird. sunny, 66 degree February days, the girls may come on out to relieve themselves and forage a bit.  If we can, we'll take the opportunity to get them some more fondant before spring.  If not, they're on their own.

Wish our girls luck!  Fingers crossed that they'll come through well and be all ready for the forsythia and dandelion blooms!

'Cause if they're healthy then?  It means honey for us in July!

Dealing with loss, to be blunt, sucks.

First, the Winnie the Pooh hive.  We're really glad that we got the second hive started, the undersea one, because the Pooh hive is, in short, defunct.  The second queen is gone, the population is abysmal, and the colony is just not going to make it.  At this point, it's way too late in the season to rebuild, so we're focusing on the undersea hive, which is going gangbusters, and we'll restart the Pooh hive come spring, either with a split from the undersea hive if it's strong enough or with a new nuc.

Then, worse, and more heartbreaking, Meg.  It's been hard for me to talk about this.  I got Megaera when she was a 9-week-old puppy in 1998.  You've met here (with video), here, here, here, and here.  Best dog ever.  Smart, stubborn, fun, active, caring.  If I was upset, she'd run over to kiss me and make me feel better, every time.  She was half sheltie/half eskimo, and we had fun watching her try to herd the cats.  When she was younger and more spry, she loved hiking and was as agile as a mountain goat.

On Thursday, June 26, I came home from work to find Meg wounded and rushed her to the vet, finding out that she had a mast cell tumor.  We got her medication and tried to bring the swelling down so she could have another good couple of months, but it didn't work.  On the morning of Saturday, June 28, we brought her back to the vet and that was that.  She was 16 years, 3 months, and 16 days old.  I know that's a good long time and I know she had a good life, but it's never enough.  Not really.  Eric had only known her since April of 2008, and he was as much a mess as I.

We love her, always will.

We'll get another dog, for sure, and in the not-too-distant future.  I've had dogs since I was 9 and can't be dogless.  And Eric's always wanted a dog, so of course he wants another.  At this point, it's been almost 4 weeks, and I surprised myself that I'm already able to look at adoptable dogs without hysterically crying.  Just a week or two ago, I couldn't.  I'm still torn, feeling partly like a traitor to Meg, but mostly like there are other dogs that need good homes, and honestly?  Eric and I need a dog.

So we'll see.

I Have This Bad Habit

Procrastination.  That's standard for me.  But that's compounded by my waxing and waning excitement about things too.

If you've been reading along, you know we have bees.  I may have mentioned sometime since last summer when we first decided to get bees that we really intended to get two colonies, in two hives.  In preparation, I finished painting and sealing the Winnie the Pooh hive and started the sea life (fish) hive.

And then I stalled.  We weren't getting bees last summer, as we'd hoped, since it was too late in the season and we couldn't risk them being unable to overwinter.  I was still excited at the prospect of bees, but it was happening somewhere in the distant future.

Then, spring started approaching... but we found out we were going to end up with one nuc, for one hive.  So I still didn't finish the fish hive.  Pooh was already done and we wouldn't need the fish hive this season.

[For those who may not know, a "nuc" is a nucleus hive; approximately 5 frames of drawn honeycomb filled with honey and various stages of brood (eggs, larvae, pupae), plus full of worker bees, a few drones, and one mated queen.  The benefit to having more than one hive is the ability to mix and match frames.  So for instance, recently when we found ourselves queenless, had we a second hive, we could have pulled frames of brood from the fish hive to install in the Pooh hive, and we wouldn't have the issue we're experiencing now, which is a decrease in population while the new queen's eggs become larvae and pupae before becoming worker bees.]

So the fish hive stagnated.

And stagnated.

And then at the May beekeepers' meeting, there was this guy.  He announced that he was splitting several of his hives into nucs.  I raced over to him after the meeting, found out the price, and gave him my card.

And then didn't hear from him.

So the fish hive continued to stagnate.

Until this past weekend, when he called and said the nucs would be ready at the end of this week!  Holy crow, I only had 5/8 of one deep painted and ready!  So last night, at my first opportunity, I had to finish the one hive box so we could seal it tonight and have it ready for the weekend.  With a nuc, we're only installing 5 frames in a 10-frame box, so we don't need a second box right away.  Of course, I'm going to get going on the second box now, because the breed we're getting are Buckfast bees and they're notorious for multiplying quickly.  That's a terrific thing for hive strength, especially this late in the season, but it also means they should need a second deep pretty soon.

Second deep later, though.  First, the first deep of the fish hive...

As you can see, I've been having fun.  We've got, so far, a cleaner shrimp and an oyster with a pearl, a hammerhead shark and some seahorses, a clownfish in an anemone and a hippo tang, and then a couple of jellyfish with a moorish idol.

Our girls will be living in style!

Wanna See What Royalty Looks Like?

So today we got to do our first inspection since releasing the queen into the hive.  I was so stressed out that I had a nightmare last night that all I saw flying in our yard were drones and the hive itself was being robbed.

[All drones is bad; you need the vast majority of a colony's population to be worker bees.  The drones are the males and only useful when a virgin queen needs to mate.  Robbing occurs when foreign bees or wasps smell the hive's honey and race in en force to steal it.  The hive's bees will fight the invaders to the death, leaving your colony very weak if you don't or can't move fast to help them.]

That didn't happen.  We did see a bunch of drone comb (capped cells that were shaped very bulbously, rather than flatish), which initially concerned us.  Until we got to frame 6.

On the 6th frame, we saw a lot of open cells filled with liquid, which Eric initially thought was honey.

And then he spotted her.

The queen!  She's honestly easy to spot right now, as most of our bees are still the original dark ones, and she's so light, we don't even need the green dot on her back yet.  But as her brood hatches, and their coloration will be more like hers, she'll be a little tougher, even though you can see the difference here.  She's much bigger than the workers, with no striping, and a very elongated abdomen.  That abdomen is like that because that's where she stores her eggs and the sperm from her bout of mating, whereas workers don't have the same needs.

What you're seeing happening here is that the workers surrounding her are attending to her and grooming her.  This is great behavior to see, especially since it's obvious they've taken to their new queen.  The biggest indicator of that is that she's alive.  But it's nice, for me, to see them caring for her as they should, since those are our original bees doing it, not her own brood.

So... what we initially thought was nothing more than honey, I'm now speculating is actually a frame full of royal jelly with eggs floating in it.  At least we hope so!  It seems reasonable, and eggs are really tiny and hard to see.  Next week will be the real telltale time, because by then we should see larvae and maybe even pupae.

Fingers crossed!