Checked on the girls this morning--today is two weeks since installing my first package.
I refilled the frame feeder, it was nearly empty having been filled 4 days ago. When I inspected 4 days ago I happened to run across the queen, she seemed fine and I left her/them alone. I did not see any eggs though, and as the deal from our bee package supplier was that if their queens don't start laying in two weeks, they'll send you another one free of charge, I felt like I really needed to know if she was laying or not. I suspect that eggs were there 4 days ago and that I just wasn't seeing them. Seeing as today was "do or die day" regarding having a laying queen or not, I put on an "Opti-visor" (magnifier) that I use in jewelry repair and fly tying in the hopes that a closer look would reveal eggs and possibly larvae/brood. It worked great, and it was easy to tilt up or down in front of my eyes when I needed magnification, and then out of the way when I didn't. It worked through my veil with no problems.
Well, I have larvae and some capped brood!! I'm assuming that because I saw the queen 4 days ago and that I saw capped brood and the c-shaped larvae today, that this means the queen is doing her job, and that it's not laying workers---right?
I'll try to leave them alone for another 5-7 days until I have to top off the feeder. They are building out comb very nicely and of the 9 frames in the box right now, only the outer 2 on each side are just getting started with comb. So, I suspect that I'm going to be wanting to add another brood deep pretty soon--maybe even in a week?
Thanks!
NP
Topic: Two weeks in, I think we're ok! (Read 1023 times)