5.27.2008

The Queen of Serious Moonlight (& Other Delights)

We had a fun, sunny, and productive holiday weekend—nice change after a week of cold and rain.

Got a quick peek into the two new hives, Moss Garden and Serious Moonlight. Both hives are building comb nicely. Here you see the bees getting started on building comb on a new top bar.
During our "hive dives," we got a glimpse of the queen of Serious Moonlight. She's the big bee marked with the blue dot at center, left. (Click the photo below to enlarge it so you can see her.)
Found this beautiful striped spider on top of one of the hives.
Had to evict a wasp who was beginning to build a nest underneath the hive lid. Beehives seem to attract quite a little ecosystem; it's always interesting to see what turns up on and around the hives.

We had our first official guest of the season this weekend (Swarmcatcher Karen) and she, Wren, and I disbursed some free wildflower seeds kindly provided by Haagen Dazs as part of its Help the Honeybee campaign. More on that adventure—including (possibly) a little movie—soon.

No comments: