Preparing for Winter

Last week, I inspected all of my new honey bee colonies to see how well they are doing.  This is an image of new comb that the bees made for honey storage and brood rearing.  You can see nectar in some of the cells in the upper RH corner. In a natural honey comb, bees place nectar and honey in the upper cells, followed with a band of bee pollen, with brood placed in the center and lower portions of the comb.  The queen has not laid eggs yet in this comb so the wax is a nice ivory white in color.  You can see my reflection in the nectar filled cells.  To get this shot, I was wearing my bee suit, veil, and gloves which are essential pieces of equipment to keep me safe from getting stung.  There was a large nectar flow going on so the bees were very mellow and not upset about my presence.180 mm f3.5 (1/320 sec at f10, ISO 640) -2 ev fill flash with concave diffuser.........................Jim