Hey it's Lana from the Fun-Gis, and I'm here to talk about the EDCC hives. Mary suited us up all professional-like and took us to observe two hives, one of Orange Italian Honeybees and one of Caucasian honeybees.
Here, they are in the process of taking apart the Caucasian hive in order to check on the bees. As you can see, the smoker used to calm down bees is malfunctioning. The top division seen in the picture is where honey is produced, and the thin strip beneath is a queen guard that keeps Queen B where she belongs: the lower two divisions where brood is produced.
Either these bees are lazy, or it's early in the season, but we couldn't find any honey until we reached the Orange Italian Hive. What we did get to see were tiny eggs and larvae, as well as numerous capped larvae. Below, we see an old pollen patty that had been provided by Mary. Apparently, the bees were not collecting very much pollen on their own, so this patty serves as food.
Although it is hard to see, the bees have built a small wall to the left of the entrance. Mary mentioned that it is made of propolis, which is like "bee glue". It is typically used to seal cracks. Clearly, the bees didn't like their large entrance so much, since it's harder to ward off predators.
All in all, getting to the hives up close and personal was a great experience (especially as a bee lover). Honeybees are rad, and they're dying at high rates because of us humans!!! We need to protect these fuzzy arthropod friends that pollinate a huge percentage of our major crops.
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