Big news from the bee corner! As you can see, our hives are growing — and getting more colorful. We have added a second “hive super” to all three hives — a “super” is a layer in the hive. Once one layer is nearly full, the beekeeper adds another level to encourage more bee and honey production. After two levels are full, a third is added — this is a honey super. The honey super has a screen barricade that prevents the queen from entering, which means she can’t lay eggs there. Since the baby bee production is limited to the bottom levels, the top floor becomes filled with pure honey comb. That’s where we can take the honey from. As you can see from the photo, our first hive (on the right) already has grown to three levels. We could have honey from that hive in just a couple of weeks! As for the colors, well, we thought the bees needed a little decorating. Our next big task: coming up with a name for our little honey production. Any suggestions? — Angela M.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, July 10th, 2008 at 6:43 am and is filed under beekeeping, gardening, living green. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.