I installed a package of bees eight days ago and released the queen five days ago. Three days ago I saw her. Today I couldn’t find her. Are these cells evidence of her laying or is this just pollen?
Looks like pollen to me. The eggs are sometimes (read: often) hard to spot. Try holding the frames up into a light and looking for a small sand grain speck in the middle of the cell - that will be an egg.
Has their been an increase or decrease in the number of capped brood cells? (remember, honey cells are capped flat, worker brood cells are slightly convex, and drone cells are a more pronounced convex cap).
It all looks like pollen to me. I don’t see any evidence of eggs in those photos, except for one, however it appears to have been laid on the cell wall, which is probably only pollen. Give it another week.
thank you for your reply
Thank you for your answer
@dwr my pleasure. Hopefully I can help out at times as your honey season progresses.
Just did an inspection and thought I would add some photos This is just pollen, right?
It looks murkier than usual.
Thanks in advance!
Pollen is the dark stuff near the middle of the frame, there’s some capped worker brood and some uncapped brood to the left of the pollen and some honey in various stages of capping.
Thanks Chau!
I thought it was but wanted to check, given the colour change.