All quiet with the Star

Not being all too sure how quickly the Star might build up, I decided to open the hive up after a week. My experience with the Moon has made me more wary of suddenly swarming bees, so I may be being overcautious. Still, better safe than sorry.
It also gave me the chance to take some pupils out again. After all the excitement of having new bees in the school last year, I feel that interest is possibly slightly on the wane: the bees are not in the pupils' consciousness as such and so I take every opportunity to involve pupils.

Honey in the making

The super is fairly empty. Yes, there are bees working away there, storing honey, but there aren't many. So the Star is far from overcrowded. The nectar stored in the supers is not capped yet, so hasn't become honey yet. This is probably mostly rape, which will probably be a headache quite in its own right.

Inside the brood box, the picture was much the same as last time: lots of stores, some brood, a clearly marked queen, some queen cups of no serious intent and lots of bees.

It's funny: when you take a frame out, a lot of bees are often hanging from the bottom, doing morning gymnastics or God knows what. I really don't know what they should be doing there, but they probably know. Another thing in which the bees are way ahead of me!

Hang in there!

When I removed one frame I left behind a poor bee bridging the gap and not sure which way she should go. She eventually made up her mind, but watching her do the splits over the gap was quite something.

Mind the gap

Not the best brood pattern

One thing did worry me somewhat: although I did not look closely, I had the feeling there weren't many young larvae and possibly not many eggs, either. The laying pattern was not as perfect as it has been in the past. Perhaps the queen or the bees are feeling swarmy and this might explain the queen's somewhat more erratic laying habits; but surely, in this case there should be queen cells or at least some slightly more serious attempt at raising a new queen?