Bare Bee Inspection

This isn't as brave as it looks actually. 

Can you see the drone?

Look for the curled up white grubs, those are the babies.

For today’s inspection I went veil and glove-less! It was pretty exciting. They stayed very calm for the most part, and I was not stung. (Dad was, but that was because one got stuck in his hair.) I had to smoke them again, though, when I got closer to the queen and the brood comb as they were getting feisty.

I saw a good number of drones this time, you can spot a few in the photos, they have large dragon-fly like eyes. You can also see some of the brood, curled up in their cells.

I’d say the hive is just under half full of comb now. No harvesting yet. I am a little concerned though, because they’re building brood comb on the larger bars, and honey storage on the thinner ones, but it’s supposed to be the other way around: brood on the thin bars, honey on the wide. But all the comb is straight, with little to no side attachments, so I’ll just let them do what they do.

 Afterwards, when dad pulled the stinger out, we looked at it under his hand-held microscope. Amazingly small! Surprisingly it didn’t look barbed at all. They must be micro-barbs because the stinger looked very smooth.