The Queens

On the mornings of April 14 and 15 2009, I opened the hives to dig the little cork out of the ends of the queen cage.

Now I trust to luck. I was surprised that the cages were hard to pull out of the hive and found it was because the worker bees were busily attaching the cage to the foundation with beeswax. I managed to break it free using a pair of salad tongs. If I was wearing gloves I probably could have just used fingers.

Unfortunately I think I accidentally smooshed a few bees when I was trying to re-seat the frames. I don't want to look. Well, I don't really have to look for a few days. Next time I open the hives will be on a nice sunny day when many workers will be out looking for nectar and pollen. I'll use the smoker. I saw a video on youtube.com about smoking. I'll have to practice lighting the smoker this weekend. I might look on Sunday to see if the queens are out.

Now I want to take pictures of my bees, and found my current lens on my SLR lacking, I have ordered a new lens from Dell. Then I thought maybe I don't need a telephoto lens so much as a macro lens... so maybe... next week? The macro is actually cheaper than the telephoto...the two together are way outside my budget...but I would be able to take excellent pictures of my bees.