Good and bad.

Today I checked the beehives from top to bottom. Meagan, Taylor and Emily are all busy with activity. This is the bees' prime season. I could see all three hives are developing well. Emily seems to have more honey put up at this time. Taylor has more baby bees. Meagan has a balance of brood and pollen and honey. All three are disinterested in the syrup I was putting out for them. They strongly prefer real natural nectar and pollen that they gather themselves. The Gentleman Farmer can understand that feeling. It won't be long until Meagan and Emily need to expand like Emily already had. So far, I'm very proud of all three of these hives. My knowledge is admittely limited by my experience, but all signs point to good things.

You'll notice Hive #4 so far is not included in today's update. Hive #4 was started with a queen that ended up being extra. Instead of just letting her die or releasing her to probably die, I attempted to put her with some bees from Emily and start Hive #4. Today there was no life in the hive. Regulars here will know that I have nursed it along as best I could. I don't know if the queen was possibly damaged in shipment, or the amount of bees that stayed with her in the hive just weren't enough to make a go of it. In any case, I'm saddened.

My niece Meagan (not the hive of the same name) built a sweet birdhouse in shop class and donated it to the Tennessee Renaissance Farm. She chose its spot, and I installed it today. I meant to ask her what type of birds might nest in this box, but so far I haven't. With so many birds on the farm this spring, it won't be long before I get a definite answer.

I also weeded the garden this evening and I'm trying to decide where to put the berry bushes that I've been buying on clearance lately. I should get them in the ground Tuesday.

To the people who are reading and interacting with me on this blog: I really appreciate your encouragement. Some of you have written from countries The Gentleman Farmer had to look up on the atlas. Your moral support, curiosity and friendship all encourage me to keep on working and improving the farm.

Today's Photos:

• Emily has this frame almost 2/3 full of honey.
• Click on this photo to see it in full size. In some of the cells, you can see larvae in advanced stages of development, just before they are to be capped by the nurse bees and finish their final stages of growing into little bees. (The dark spots on some of the larvae are their eyes.)
• Capped brood on the left, larvae in the middle cells, and eggs toward the right. Some of these eggs are late in development, on the in-between stage between egg and larvae. Also click on this photo to see it full-size. These are good examples of nice, healthy bees. Their wings are almost clear and they have that really fine fuzz all over them. Fuzz is one way to distinguish bees from similar-looking hornets.
  
• Meagan's bird house.