Hive-A Queen search continues...

I'm not fretting too much as I have seen larvae in the last couple of openings, but I'd like to find a queen since I have seen a swarm cell and they were quite crowded for a couple of days.



This time I've enlisted another pair of eyes in my friend Gregg.





He also gets to play photographer so you can see me in my snazzy new beekeeper coveralls. Speaking of which, for under $35 I got them personalized with my name and the farm name. They are zip-up to about mid-chest where there are two buttons that are mostly under my veil. They have great utility pockets for hive tools and a bee brush. I highly recommend getting a pair from www.automotiveworkwear.com (For the first time I had a bee, actually two, get under my veil. I'm not sure how, but I think a bit of Velcro between those buttons might do the trick.)

Hive-A had a shallow super of new foundation placed on it about two weeks ago. All the frames were drawn out and many were full of nectar. The frame pictured was the least drawn out of the ten. Incredible work.
After sifting through those 10 frames with no queen or larvae it's time to open the large body.

I wanted to start with the frame that has the SHB trap as it was looking like mostly drone comb and if I'm going to put any frame on the ground while I sort through the others I want it to be this one. I really think a frame support on the side of the hive is the way to go.




Looking at the frame you can see some of the cells are slightly bigger than the average cell and you can even see capped drone larvae, indicated by the protruding cappings.







This is a great shot, a girl poking out of her capping... just about to emerge. My smoker had already burned itself out and the hive had been open for so long already that we didn't mess with waiting around.




I was more confident about the hive being queen right as I was seeing more and more larvae that looked a ways from being capped, but I still wanted to find out if I had the original queen. We found her on frame 19B. Finally.

All's well with 2008-A. On Wednesday I'll check 2008-B and see if all the activity last week was pre-swarm or them just being pissy about the lawnmower.

(you can see where the Velcro will go!)