June Baby Buildup = July Honey Parade

All 7 hives are full of new and emerging brood. Tens of thousands of new bees are ready to start working their way through jobs in the colony.

Honeybee Life Cyle

The honeybee life cycle is 4 stages long (egg, larva, pupa and adult). The length spent in each stage varies: 24 days for drones, 21 days for worker bees, and 16 days for queens.

When the worker bee emerges it begins to cycle through jobs in the hive.

During it's first couple days of life the bee must clean out it's cell perfectly. The queen will not lay another egg in the cell unless it is spotless.

During days 3 - 11 the bee takes on nursing responsibilities and is charged with feeding and taking care of the brood. These bees secrete jelly from special glands. Queens get a lot of rich royal jelly, whereas drones and workers are cut off early and fed honey and pollen.

Between days 12 - 17 worker bees exude wax from spaces between their abdominal segments. They use this wax to build and repair cells that store nectar, pollen and developing bees.

For the remainder of the worker bee's life (Day 17 - 42), they are foragers. They will fly up to 2 miles in one direction to gather nectar, pollen and propolis. Propolis is a reddish-brown resinous substance collected from tree buds. It is used to seal the hive.

(*This does not take into account the many other specialized jobs a worker bee performs, such as carrying out the dead, ventilating the hive, scouting, and guarding (ouch).

Air Conditioning

We are starting to experience more hot and humid days. The bees can be seen 'bearding' around the entrances and using their wings as fans.

This is by far the most prolific colony. They are buzzy filling a second super full of honey. The recent sporadic showers are settling into our dry ditches and filling the depressions long enough for little proboscises to slurp up.

Just WOW!