I'm back...from the Bahamas!
The reason I haven't posted recently is that I've spent a little over the last week in sea of Abaco at the Bahamas. The weather was fantastic but, I missed my bees and worried about them as hurricane Dennis approached. I got back last night and apparently, the cover to the hive had been blown off. It was placed back on within what I think was probably just a few hours. I was worried all night that the brood had been chilled and died. I've just inspected and found that two full frames of brood had already emerged. There were thousands of workers that still had the downy, matted appearance after first comming out of their cells. This time I didn't see the queen as usuall but, I saw eggs and there were no queen cells so she's probably still doing fine in the hive. I am finding some insects becoming a nusence arround my hive. In one of the photos below you can see a type of mud dauber wasp building her nest. Since I've gotten the bees these things seem to be popping up everywhere. Earwigs are also showing up in the hive. To my knowlage these aren't the usuall pests of bees so that was rather odd. Anyways, my bees were a little more tempermental than usuall. I think it was the fact that their cover had been blown off and all the rain from the hurricane.
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In the other photo you can see the cells after the brood emerged. They will continue to get darker with larval casings. If you look carefully you can see some worker bees with a matted apperance. These bees probably just saw light for the first time since they emerged less than a day ago!
P.S. Sorry I couldn't get the pictures of the queen. I searched the entire hive for her but, I shouldn't keep the hive open for more that twenty minutes and I ran out of time. I'll be hiking the Appalatian Trail next week so my next post will probably be later than usuall again.
posted by FLbeekeeper at 9:40 AM
2 Comments:
If the cover stayed off my bees would become cold but because temeratures were in the upper 80s the greatest danger would be skunks and ants invading the hive from the large open space and that some of the brood would die from the cooler temperatures(homeostasis is at about 93ºF). An yes, they would get drenched.
The Bahamas were exelent. The water was crystal clear, fish were everywhere at the reefs and I probably took a couple hundred photos. The weather was perfect exept some nights the air was filled with mosquitos and the 95ª tempratures were a little more than I like. Best of all, because summer is the lull in tourest season the reefs weren't saturated with tourists making for a more plesant experience. I'm not really sure what part was best, it could have been the snorkling at the reefs, the sailing, the culinary experience with the conch or maybe just the fact that Bahamians know how to party. There were two independence days while I was there! One on the 4th for ours and one on the 10th for theirs.
I will when I get them but, they're all on film so I have to get them developed and scanned. It could be a few weeks, afterall, next week I'm hiking on the Appalation Trail!
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