Busy as a bee!

Ryan and I built our hive in March and established our colony of bees around April 1st. Here are a few pictures of how our hive looks today.

Our hive is a Kenyan style Top Bar hive. It is a horizontal hive that is about 3.5 feet long. It has an observation window installed in one of it's panels.

This is a view with the window cover removed. The section to the left has only one comb that has brace comb to attach it to the sides of the hive. The rest of the comb in that section is brood comb. This is where the queen lays her eggs. There is also some pollen and honey stored in this comb. It does not weigh as much as comb that is used only for honey.

The section to the right shows seven comb attached using brace comb. This is the area of the hive used for storage of excess honey. All of the comb here has been build since May 14th.

This is a better look at the comb made for honey stores. You can see the bees building a new comp at the far right.

We are hoping to harvest one or two comb either this weekend or next.