Beautiful Brood

I looked at the swarm hive today and the queen is laying beautifully! Check it out:

Wall to wall brood.

Open brood next to capped brood. The population is growing by the minute! 

Rebuilding

Wow, looks like this is the year that I start from scratch. All three hives from last year have died out. So depressing. But! I have friends in the bee business. So I'm back up to three hives now: the package, a swarm that my friend Peggy caught and gave to me and a nuc that I bought from Bob Arnold.

Here's the swarm that I brought home in the car. I believe it had a virgin queen because she took a while to start laying but she's up and running now. 

Big fat nuc from Bob. It's in double deeps now and the queen is laying like crazy. 11 frames of brood a week ago.

The bees got pretty hot on the way home from Bobs and bearded in the car.

Lots of pollen and nectar for the bees now.

Black locust.