Bees are Working...............

Today Dad went in and checked the queen cages. They were empty. He looked in both hive boxes to see if he could find her but couldn't. He did see lots more honeycomb being made and lots of working inside the hive.

Here is a closer up picture of one of the frames..... There is noticeable honeycomb and inside is pollen already being stored!

Today's tidbit is about the most important "queen bee."

The queen is the mother of all of the bees of the beehive. There is only one queen in a colony of honeybees. Without constant egg-laying by the queen the bee colony would soon die. One of the most important functions of the queen is to enforce the social order of the hive. She does this by her very presence! "Queen Substance" is a pheromone that the queen secretes to let the member bees know that all is well in the hive. Pheromones are chemical substances secreted by the body that like members of the same species recognize and respond to. Bees in a colony "share" the queen's pheromones among themselves, and thus recognize fellow members, as well as identify intruders. The absence of a queen causes obvious "distress" among bees of the colony. (adapted from ccpollen.com)

Until next time!