Bees

In keeping with life here becoming increasingly Good Life-esque, Mum got some bees about a month ago. Until recently I've had to watch from a distance because we only have one bee suit, but we just got another which means I can give Mum a hand if she needs it.

Warning, photo heavy post...

This is part of the hive lid, you can see the bees busy eating, when you smoke them, instinct kicks in, they think there's a forest fire so franticly eat their stores so they can fly to safety and re-establish the colony. 

 Our hive is brand new, and you can see the difference between the frames we got the colony on, and our new frames.

This is a brand new frame, with the wax foundation, the bees are just starting to make the comb ready to fill. 

This frame has already got the comb, but there isn't much honey there yet, the weather has been so bad that it's really slowed them down. 

This comb is starting to fill with capped honey.

These cells have been filled with pollen, there's huge variation in pollen colours, even some that's green.

The bee in the centre has obviously just got back from collecting some of that green pollen, she's got huge clumps of it on her legs. 

This is one of the main brood frames, encouragingly we have lots of capped brood cells.

If you look closely you can just see some of the grubs in the bottom of these cells, eventually they'll be capped, and the pupae will develop in to an adult bee.

We might not get much honey this summer if things carry on like they are at the moment, but hopefully the colony will stay healthy through the winter and we can have a good year next year!