Happy Mother’s Day dear reader(s?).

Picking up where I left off last time: a pimp cup of Peace Tree’s Red Rambler to “celebrate” the first round of grafts of the season. Something happened to the bottom bar of ten cells … none of them took. Maybe it sat for too long between being grafted and being placed in the hive. They were covered with a damp paper towel while I worked through the other 20 grafts. Maybe it was too cold of an evening that first night and the bees clustered above it. There are a ton of bees in there, but who knows? Whatever the reason, the nurse bees just ignored it. Of the other two bars of grafted larvae, I had a 19 out of 20 acceptance.

So 19 out of 30 grafts are looking really good. This picture was taken maybe 18 or 20 hours after they were started: just old enough to be able to easily tell which cells are being cared for vs. which are being neglected. A quick check yesterday evening showed the queen cells are nice & long which means they’ve been provided lots of royal jelly and are being well cared for. In a day or two, I need to get the mating nucs assembled and in place. Time flies.

Rambling on about queens, note the tiny tragedy above. See the Varroa mite hitching a ride on that nice looking queen? Alex Ebert mentioned to me once maybe a year or so ago that he’d snapped a photo of the same thing. He takes some of the best honey bee photos I’ve ever seen, by the way. I found this one in an inspection in Ankeny. The mite may just be using the queen as quick & easy transportation, but even so … it’s just wrong. Tis the season to absolutely blast those things.

Tis also the season for these things.

Started the day early with a pot of coffee in the garage going over this beast. I have a weird sort of nostalgia for old Tecumseh engines. I think my Dad’s Dad had a thing for them – to be honest, I’m not sure. In any case, there’s a bit of a family resemblance to the old logo. Glen Stanley gave me this bee blower maybe five years ago already. Safe to say it’s had a few decades of use, and it’s still going strong. I’ve taken care of it, but it needs a little attention here over the next couple months.

And spent the afternoon at a field day at Sheila & Jerry Weldon’s in Knoxville. They have a beautiful place. Great looking gardens, all sorts of fruit trees, and 16 or 20 colonies of bees. Very nice of them to let us pick through them.

Gratuitous Brood Porn:

Doesn’t get any better than this one.

Alright. See you. I swear I feel ticks crawling on me. More to come. Thanks for reading.