Kiev gets another new queen

Kiev, my Russian hybrid hive gets another new queen.  They survived the winter, but they were queenless when I checked on them this Spring.  I bought another queen, Italian this time (the Russian bees seemed a bit mean so trying Italian again) and after 4 days, she had not been released from her cage.  I released her and the next week I couldn't find her.  It also looked like a lot of the drones had found their way back from half a kilometer - not as many as before, but too many I fear.  I put the new marked Russian hybrid queen in - this time with clipped wings. They really seems interested in her.  I think they've been queenless long enough that they will take to her quickly.  I hope so. 

Do you like my pastel colored hive bodies?  :-)

New medium hive body for Milano

Milano, my new Italian colony is doing really well.  They were ready for the new medium hive body I added.  This hive is the 8 frame type and I am using plastic frames for the brood frames.  I have a lot of trouble with the wood ones pulling apart or sticking to the bottom of the next section.

"Drill, baby, drill"?!

I saw this bumper sticker on the way in to work this morning: "Drill here, Drill now, Pay less".  Ouch!  I think I'd be scraping that off if I were him.  Even before the spill, he should've known that we only have 2% of the world's oil reserves  - we can't affect the oil prices much.  In fact, we only got serious about drilling when gas got to $4/gallon because below that, it is cheaper to import oil.