The fruit bloom

The fruit bloom has started. The first to bloom around my area are the wild plum trees. They smell wonderful and the bees love the pollen. Flowering crabs are blooming also, I think apple trees around me are a week out for flowering.
Dandelions have finally appeared on my lawn. About three weeks later than normal.
 There will be a great variety of pollen coming in now but after June 1st there may be a dearth of pollen for a couple weeks. Pollen patties may be needed at that time.

Flowering Crab in Eden Prairie

Dandelion

Wild Plums in the ditch in front of my house

Cool Bird

I had the Scarlet Tanager in my bird bath earlier in the week. I have never seen one before live and in color. Thought I would share the pic.
I have also seen but no pics yet, indigo bunting, orioles, humming birds. 

More Packages

The package bees are here and I will start passing them out starting at 8:30 am Friday.

Emergency queen cells

This is what emergency queen cells look like. They could also be called supersedure cells. They are located across a frame with the bees desperate too get a new queen. This was one of my packages that went queenless for some reason. You can see two queen cells look ok the others are puny and would be a very poor queen. Being with this weather we have had. If a queen would have emerged the odds of here getting mated properly would be very low. The cold spring has left very few drones to be had in the hives. It may be mid June before there will be sufficient drones to get a queen properly mated.
I did squash the cells and installed a new queen.

The supersedure queen cells are the elongated cells hanging on the side of the frame. Two look about the right size for a queen, the others are small and would not turn into a good queen.

The Silent Hive?

During the 60's the book called "The Silent Spring" was published. The author Rachel Carson talked about DDT and other chemicals in the environment and how the pesticides were being distributed around the world.
 The American Bald Eagle is the symbol of the DDT fallout. The DDT was making their egg shells thin and the Eagles' eggs were breaking in the nests, their reproduction was dramatically affected by DDT.
When I was growing up in the 60's to see an eagle was a huge event. Since the ban of DDT in 1972, eagles have made a huge come back, and now I see an eagle several times a week.
 The Silent Spring has a line from a John Keats poem "The sedge is wither'd by the lake, and no birds sing." A compelling quote if you substitute bees for birds.
 The author talks of how we as cohabitants of the planet, that we share with all living things. That we can't control the planet to our own exclusive control. Something will break and it is the human race that ultimately will pay the price for this attitude.
The Silent Spring helped launch the conservation movement.
 Is this same pesticide event now happening to bees and to all pollinators?
Is American agriculture creating the silent hive? My readers should stay informed about this issue and draw their own conclusions.
A good commentary in the StarTribune about this very issue is worth the read.
http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentaries/206997751.html?page=1&c=y

Queen Acceptance

  10 days from hiving a package would be appropriate time to check for eggs.
First delivery beekeepers need to check their hives for larvae and laying pattern.
Second delivery beekeepers should check their hives on or around this coming Tuesday the 14th.  If the queen is not accepted the bees will dwindle. A new queen will have to be introduced to keep the hive going.

you can see the eggs in the cells

 Older Larvae

Please take a moment

 Please take a moment to send an e-mail to your legislator to support the new bee lab in the state bonding bill. It only takes a few minutes. The bee lab is desperately needed to help solve the problems the honeybees are facing today.
The adage the squeaky wheel get the grease is the truth. Many of the beekeepers that read this blog are from all across the state. Reaching out to all the lawmakers around the state will definitely put this issue on the front burner.

http://library.constantcontact.com/download/get/file/1104002975061-14/Bee+Lab.pdf