Jerremie had a quick peek into Queen Lilibet and Queen Zazzala's hives on Friday night, during the break in the summer heat.
Queen Lilibet is doing well, laying her eggs in a nice pattern on the comb. The hive is expanding, filling up the really big top bar hive in our yard. Jerremie wanted to make sure that Queen Lilibet felt like she had lots of room, so he 'checkerboarded' the bars. This means that he took empty top bar pieces and put them between full top bar pieces. Hopefully, this will encourage the bees to stay in the hive and not swarm.
Queen Zazzala and her minions are not doing as well, as they have only managed to fill up half of their Langstroth long chest hive. We are not sure why this is happening. It could be that Queen Zazzala's just an easygoing kind of bee, taking her time with building and laying. We will try to keep a closer eye on the hive to make sure they make it to a point where they will survive the winter.
Well, that's all for our hive updates today. We do have an update on some other hives which we will publish in the next few days. Keep coming back for more updates and intros!
-Rita
