(Friday) This week I had a scare. I was wondering about the development of my hives, and especially worried after Graeme wrote he already placed a second super on his hive. While checking on the food and pollen paddies, I took a photograph (left) and sent it to Bill. He wrote back, scaring the hell out of me: "Have you checked this hive for brood? I suspect you have a poor queen or may even have lost her as there should be more bees than what I see in the photo." He also wrote that he didn't have time on the next day. Agnes suggested I should check and, if necessary, purchase a queen from Stan, the Flying Dutchman, who would bring it to the bee meeting on Thursday (it was Mondau).
   On Tuesday I went for a bicycle ride. When I returned, there was a message that Bill had left only minutes before. He said he could come. I called him up and he was at my place about 15 minutes later. He pulled the frames and . . . well we found the queen. He also said there were actually more bees than he saw on my picture. I was relieved. Bill said he was even more relieved.
  

I was worried about the bees eating the styrofoam in the hive, which I had used to decrease the volume that the bees needed to heat. But as I wrote before, they were carving holes into the styrofoam and were drawing comb. So I decided to pull the styrofoam and instead insulate the hive from the outside, leaving the front part free.

This photo shows the back side of the hive, illustrating how the insulation wraps around to keep it a bit warmer than it would without the insulation.