Queen bee Aurora update, in which we learn the value of drawn out comb.

Soon after we introduced Queen bee Aurora to her newbox and empty frames of foundation, I got an email from Tinaand Thomas Keller, our advisers in the Aurora project. They were worried that the bees wouldn’t be able to draw outcomb fast enough to keep Aurora fully occupied in her egg-laying business. Beesdon’t draw out comb so fast at the end of the summer.

Tina and Thomas own a honey extractor, a contraption that spins the honeyfrom the comb and leaves behind empty cells that the bees can refill as they seefit. Tina emailed that they were going to be extracting honey from some deepframes.

“We could bring you some of the extracted deep frames forAurora and exchange them for some of the new frames you guys have there.  Thatwould help a lot in not slowing down the growth of this hive.”

Thanks to Tina and Thomas, we were able to swap out 5 emptyframes for 5 sticky frames that had lovely comb built out on both sides of thefoundation.

A week later, when we checked her, we could see that Aurorahad been very busy, and had filled all of those frames with:

Nice pearly white eggs (see those little blurry white lines inside the cells?)

Andpretty little larvae floating in royal jelly.