First of all, let me say that I haven’t yet figured out how to use the manual focus, BUT I did figure out that if I press the camera lens all the way up to the window, I get a much clearer shot and somehow it knows to focus on the inside of the window.
It’s been so hot! Today’s actually a bit overcast, so the bees seemed pretty chill when I went out there. Lots of bearding! For some reason a lot more bearding on the top entrance versus the bottom.
Wow! They’ve gotten pretty creative with this cross-comb turning a corner and back again joining this comb with two separate combs going perpendicular to this one.
Note how there are hardly any bees on the comb. Most are out of the hive or on the windows and floor.
Here’s a close-up from the same window. It looks like the honey is just going to drip out of the comb!
Here’s an unusually clear shot from the other window. You can see the wavy comb and how they’ve attached it to the support bar.
Same view, but closer.
A surprisingly large amount of pollen in this comb – protein for brood!
P.S. Check out my heirloom tomatoes. It’s so funny because I bought and planted fully expecting to move out at the end of this month. I just put them in my cart on a whim and figured the new home owners might appreciate them. But now I get to eat them!!!! If I’d known we were staying, I would have planted cucumbers, onions, carrots, leeks, garlic . . .
Read about our beekeeping adventures (you can track the progress of our hive too) HERE
That honeycomb is so beautiful! Love the pics.
You mentioned that it’s hot, and that made me wonder what state you guys are living in? Here in Texas it’s so hot that I can’t even get anything started at our new homestead right now. Even our rabbits are temporarily living indoors. Gah!
What type of bee do you keep? Are they very aggressive?
I’m in MD and I have no idea what kind of bees they are. They are small cell natural bees with a queen bred to be good at grooming (i.e. to get rid mites) and suuuuper gentle. =)
This is a fantastic diary of your adventures with the perone Hive, I am amazed to see the progress with packages, as a prime swarm is recommended. Small cell was a good choice as they should regress very quickly to wild size. Are the bees sticking more or less to making the comb from the top bars in the grid or are they going wider and missing some out? Have you made the hive back up to full size, or are you going to leave it as just the brood area until next spring?
I have a perone MK1 hive we started last year with our native black bees, unfortunately we did not get a swarm for our MK2 (like yours) this spring but that gives me the opportunity to put some windows in it over the winter ready for next year. By the way, we are testing it in the rainy UK and our black bees are adapted to late spring slow build up to avoid the more dreadful weather (like snow in April). There are a number of us interested in this hive (from all over the world) some who, like you have one started this year, and we keep in touch on the Biobees forum, do you mind if I post a link to your blog, I think other people would be very interested in your observations, photos and videos. Do you know anyone else doing this?
I am really looking forward to your next episode
thanks, Andy
Thanks so much for commenting! My bees have done their own thing with the comb grid. With the exception of the one large cross comb (across the front window), they are building comb in the same direction as the comb grid, but their comb is pretty wavy – maybe that’s because the support dowels are so thick?? I have a hard time getting clear pictures of the hive’s interior, but it’s exceptionally clear and amazing in person. I really think you’ll be happy to have windows!!
I’ve had one person comment on my blog about his Perone hive. I can dig that info up if you’d like me to. To me Perone’s hive just makes the most sense of all the hives and also beekeeping philosophies.
I would not mind if you passed along my blog to the biobees forum. I read everything I could find about this hive there, but I don’t follow the forums.
Thanks, I will post a link to your hive blog and there is much more of interest on your site for people to read. I am glad you made use of the information on the forum, I am the bloke on the videos Perone Hive Experiment part 1 and 2 on youtube with our MK1 hive and a couple of others of us demonstrating them at the UK Natural Bee Keeping conference which you may have seen.
Thanks again,
Andy