Checking Out the Bees

You may or may not know that my dear husband is a bee keeper. He has been keeping bees for approximately 4 years. We have about 5 hives in our backyard and then another 4 or 5 at a friend's house down the road. He is nearly completely self taught (his dad was a bee keeper for a short time in the 80's) and really enjoys it. In addition to harvesting honey he also will go out and retrieve swarms of bees that may be in a tree in someones yard. This past week his father called and said he had a swarm of bees in a pine tree in the yard - so off he went. Typically swarms will stick around for a day or 2. Maybe 3 days, but that isn't typical. The swarm that was in his father's tree had been around for a week! It was amazing to see that they had built comb right in the tree and were prepared to stick around and call it home. He was examining the comb that they had built when he noticed the youngest "bee" he has ever seen. He found larva that was only a day or two old. The kids had much fun checking it out.