Star shining

On Friday, 14th March I inspected the Star and did to it all I did to the Moon, more or less. I was accompanied by another teacher, but again no children. I guess the rehearsals for the school play got in the way.

So it was just the two of us. I dispensed with the smoker, again, and it did not seem to matter at all. The bees were calm, good-natured and, if I may indulge in a little fantasy, pleased to see me. Lifting up the whole hive to put in the bee gym was quite a task, but my workouts at the gym are obviously paying off. Lifting up the hive dislodged the entrance bar and luckily I spotted that just before we left, or else the hive would have been open to any passing marauder.

What's under the roof?

Opening up the Star, the bees had built comb over the frames, much like the Moon, though less artistically. I think the reason they built it there is to have more stores near the brood, as the new comb was directly over the frames containing brood.


The Star have more of a sweet-tooth than the Moon as more of the fondant was gone. And although one whole frame side was empty of stores, the Star, too, has sufficient stores to not need the fondant anymore. I took it away and had it gift-wrapped by the kitchen staff (who have a brilliant, industrial-kitchen sized cling-film wrap dispenser) ready for next year.

Bee egg hunt

The Star queen has also started laying and is following the same pattern as the Moon queen, with the brood located towards the entrance side of the frames. We actually saw the queen (as well as brood and eggs), who was doing her best to appear unobtrusive, but for her yellow spot and also saw a couple of worker bees emerging from their cells, other bees happily stepping over them as they hatched. I managed to exchange one short store frame for a long empty - using similar scratch tactics as with the Moon.

Long live the queen!

Am very pleased with the Star, too, that has also survived the winter well and is now colony building. Kept the celotex cladding on the Star and refitted it on the Moon and will keep it there till the end of March.