Bee-yonce'

Too easy with the pun today. 

I saw a bee doing the bee dance!  The one where they dance in a figure 8, shaking the money maker, to tell other bees where the food is.
I didn't get it filmed, but many other people did.  Here's an example:


I didn't check the angle of the sun as I was holding up a frame of comb and had just filled the feeder.  I didn't want to keep the hive open while I dinked around trying to record on a crap phone while wearing bee gloves. (Those are heavy leather long gauntlets, not gloves made of bee-hides.)

Still, pretty exciting to see it so soon after becoming a bee keeper.  For the record, it was one of the Italians, not a Carniolan. 

The bees have the 2nd deep hive body, 8 frame, on top of the first now on both hives.  They are starting comb up there.  Of course I read the instructions for putting those on properly after I put them on improperly.  You do just set the box on top of the old box and cover as usual.  BUT the book says I should have "baited" the top/new hive body with a couple of frames of brood from the bottom hive body.  Oh well.  The bees found their way up.

The Italians also seem to build lots of burr comb that I then remove or think "I should take that out.  It will make a mess if they fill it with honey and I have to tear it up to do extraction."  Of course, this year I won't be extracting, and they are building it between the first and second hive bodies.  So, even in future years, they would get to keep that for winter food.  If I take it apart and clean it up a bit in spring, it will probably be empty of honey or babies or anything else.  So why force them to conform?
I'll read the section of the book on that after I've let it go too far to correct.  That's just how I roll.

And now...from the original Beyonce':


( I think this means the food source is about 200 yards at a 58.3degree angle from the sun. )