A few weeks since I last checked Baghdad, time for a peek.
Andrius gave me a hand this time.
The top box is pretty much as I last saw it a few weeks a go with Rima.
Two full-ish frames, and lots of empty ones.
This is one of the outside frames, just foundation at the top,
and you can see a line where they have started to draw out the comb,
then another line where they have started to fill it up with nectar.
Propolis is called 'Pikis" in Lithuania, they add it to spirits to make it into a tonic.
Plenty of grubs in there
Lots of good brood.
The girls huddle together in the corner while we go through the boxes
Ordinary pic, except for the spectral bee-ghost at the left...
looks like a jellyfish.
Can you imagine living packed in like this?
Here the bee on the right is carrying in saddle-bags of pollen on her legs,
the one in the middle is filing it away to feed the kids later.
Just to the left of her, little discs of pollen tucked away.
Apparently they separate the different types of pollen,
sometimes the colour diffference between the pollen in different cells is much starker.
Thanks Andrius for the photos.
you guys are doing really well. have you thought of sharing your knowledge elsewhere?
ReplyDeleteThanks for the encouragement, but I dont think we really feel qualified, still very much learning as we go. I'm glad I'm doing this with Adrian, we come across problems and just make it up, our best guess. Last weekend I stumbled across some local hives and a group of beekeepers whom I may keep in touch with, to pick their brains. I was surprised when this beekeeper pointed out the other hives he knew of in our local area, our girls have got competition...
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