There's No Place Like Comb

Our hives are ready. Three bases attached to three "deeps" sit in the back of Mike's truck waiting for our nucs (more on this later) which we will pic up on Friday.  A deep is one of the boxes that make up a hive. It's a deeper box in which the queen lives and lays eggs all the while attended to by her workers. She lays her eggs into cells  made by the workers. These six sided cells are built from wax on a plastic foundation which we have suspended from frames.

We are "new-bees". Our hives are brand new, meaning they have never had bees living in them. The frames inside are all sparkling clean and well, empty. What this means is this: if we were to dump bees inside they would have to build up comb from scratch and that takes time. Since the life expectancy of a worker bee is only 6 weeks and it takes 21 days to make a new worker bee we were advised to bring in some pre-fab housing for our new bees.

Now, when we go get our bees we are getting what is called a nuc, pronounced nuke, or nuclear hive. A nuc is four or five frames from a working hive including a queen. It is a colony that had been working well for a time and the bees know and are related to their queen. The frames contain honey and pollen and eggs and larva. Additionally, Kris purchased a deep of frames from her "bee-boyfriend" (that's a separate blog altogether) with drawn out comb on it. Meaning, comb that is usable for egg laying immediately or almost immediately.

Each one of our deeps has five of these "previously owned fixer-uppers" inside. Once the nucs are placed alongside these frames the bees will have to go to work cleaning up the after the last tenants; get the place ready for the queen and her new family; set up shop and make the hive own. Maybe even hang the sign, you know, the one that reads"

Bee it ever so humble, there's no place like comb!

Peace,
Karen