Today marks the end of my first week keeping bees. I’ve found out they have a real big appetite for sugar syrup and that they’re even more fascinating than I had imagined. We inspected both hives over the weekend to be sure the queens were released and laying eggs. So far, so good I think/hope… I may take another look this coming weekend to get a look at the brood and see how much comb they have built.

Photo Credit: Rossman Apiaries

After a few days of cold, wet weather, this afternoon was warm enough that the bees were out collecting pollen. I saw several workers flying in with their pollen baskets loaded to the max. As I watched them come in for a landing, I noticed that the workers would often miss and land on the ground below the hive. This convinced me to go ahead and splurge for some sloped cypress hive stands from Rossman Apiaries. These stands will fit under my current hive bodies and give my bees a sloped surface to aid in landing. I hope this will help save our hardworking bees lots of energy.