LOGGER HAS BEEN PLANTED - me, 27.04.18 :)

Today was a very educational day. Together with my father I checked all 7 bee hives for health.

Above: freshly opened bee hive.

You do check them by opening every hive and look for spaces left for building combs etc. One thing you have to look out for are queen cells:

If they build these, the space is getting less and they tend to swarm (get out with their new queen and half of the bees) in a few weeks. As they already have a queen we cut these cells out. Sometimes there are like 10 of these per bees nest. Then you know you have to give them extra foundations and space!

Another thing we cut out are drone or male bee cells:

The bees are brushed off back into the hive and the drone cells are completely cut out and destroyed (frozen, molten, filtered to keep the wax). This seems cruel but there is evidence that male bee cells are one of the top places to thrive for the varroa mite which is one of the biggest bee killers today.

The bees get two empty foundations to build ne cells on to. These are heathy bees on a perfect brood comb:

See the difference to the male bee cells? Much flatter/smaller as male bees are much bigger. Out of these cells come female worker bees.

Above: female brood cells again.

I hope this gives you an impression of how a hive looks on the inside!