My Bees

More beehive checking this morning (only one to go). This time it's the bees in my backyard.

There's a little bit of capped honey on this frame, and the bees are working to fill the rest of the cells. But they've still got plenty of room, so no action is needed for a while. That's good, because after this it was time to retreat inside and stay there for the rest of the day.

When the temperature climbs above the bees' preferred operating temperature of about 35ºC, they cool the hive by gathering water and evaporating it. I don't know where my bees are getting their water from at the moment, as they have stopped using my bird bath. I hope they aren't causing problems for any of my neighbours, but I can't force them to use the water I've provided!

Checking On The Bees

Checked two hives today.

This is the giant swarm from October. They still have lots of room for expansion. The bees are building comb in the top super, but it will be a while before these frames are full. Compare that with the original hive that they swarmed from:

That's a frame almost completely full of capped honey. It's time to do some extraction of this one!

Top Assembled

Finished sewing together this top:

Now it needs a good press, but I was a bit too warm using the iron this afternoon.

Strobilanthes Seeds

Last Friday I thought that maybe I hadn't managed to collect any seeds from my Strobilanthes gossypinus, but I was wrong.

A few remaining un-popped seed pods and the seeds.

For the record, almost all of these seeds came from the flower heads I removed early last week, when the stems still had some flexibility. Only four seeds came from the whole rest of the plant, which was already crisping up when I cut off the remaining spent flowers last Friday. I presume I had left that too late, and the seed pods had nearly all popped by the time I removed them from the plant. So if you want to collect seed, I'd recommend doing it before the stems have dried out.

Now the challenge will be working out what to do with these seeds; when to plant them, what conditions to give them. And it will be interesting to see if any of the seeds which must be scattered around in the garden actually germinate.

Crepe Myrtle Attraction

My crepe myrtles (Lagerstroemia indica) are covered in balls of flowers at the moment, and I'm not the only one who loves them:

The bees were mainly gathering the pollen today. They collect an amazing amount in each trip. Look at the one below; the pollen sacs on her hind legs look full to bursting, yet she still wants more before she returns to the hive.

Reading and Eating

Our normal venue is still closed, so the book club met at one member's home, which was lovely and cool.

Lots of yummy goodies came along, too, including red velvet cake, which I'd only seen on the internet until now. It tasted good, but I imagine it would taste just the same without all the colouring.

Be Prepared

The forecast is for some more summer-like weather over the next few days, so I spread some mulch around the newer plants to help them cope.