Magic Numbers

The chance to illustrate each end of the development of a new bee. Two pictures from the one hive on the same visit. They are two different frames, but could as easily have been the same one

The left hand picture shows new-laid eggs. I'm talking about the elongated white spec at the bottom of some of the cells. You may think they are not very clear; trust me, they are easier to see here than they are in shifting light, through steamed up glasses and a veil, with a cloud of bees buzzing in your ears! ("Those are eggs, aren't they?"; "Yes, I think so" is pretty common dialogue during inspections). 

I'm confident at least some of the eggs are new-laid because they are standing on end. Over the course of three days, gravity will overcome the the sticky surface that holds each egg upright, and they will lie flat in the bottom of the cells. Then they will hatch into tiny larvae, that grow rapidly on the rich exudate that the nurse bees produce for them. For six days, the larvae lie in open cells, tended by the nurses, initially curled in the bottom in a 'C' shape, until they grow so large that they stretch along the length of the cell

Then, on what is now the ninth day after the egg was laid, the cell is capped with a digetive-coloured mix of wax and propolis, like those on the right. The larva continues to grow in the sealed cell for the next 12 days (3+6+12, you see - how cool is the universe?!), developing into an adult bee. On day 21 (3 weeks - magic!) she uses her brand new mandibles to chew through the capping and struggle out of the now very tight-fitting cell into the darkness of the hive

Her first job is to clean the cell she has emerged from, before joining the workforce of her 50,000 sisters (I haven't counted). Just left of centre, near the bottom of the right-hand image, is a capping that has been partly chewed away. Near the top, just right of centre, a new sister is engaged in the struggle to wriggle from the cell - it takes a while

The numbers relate to worker bees. Drones take three days longer to complete the process, and queens (this may surprise you) five days less. Fortunately, there were no queens developing this morning; calling the colony's bluff about wanting to swarm seems to have paid off, for now. Nor could I detect any disease interfering with the process I have described. The bee inspector has got in touch and will be returning to validate (hopefully) my diagnosis next week. All the new frames I added three days ago have been filled with wax comb, and the first nectar has already gone into it

A good news day