Comb with Young Larvae

This is a good example to see what young bee larvae looks like in the comb.  You see some eggs and the larvae which are probably 2-3 days old.  You will notice a white liquid inside the cells, that is royal jelly. Worker bee larvae are fed royal jelly for the first 3 days, after that they are fed nectar, honey and pollen.  Only larvae that have been selected to become queens will be fed royal jelly the entire time of their development.

Young larvae feeding on royal jelly. A few eggs can also be seen. 

More young larvae feeding on royal jelly. Here you can see some that are smaller than others, just different age larvae. 

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Burr Comb with Eggs

We opened up one of our hives and found some small pieces of burr comb attached to the hive lid.  When we find the bees building burr comb we tend to remove it just so they don’t start building all over the place and make a mess inside the hive.  After removing this piece I noticed it was full of eggs.  For those of you who have never seen bee eggs they look like tiny grains of rice.

Burr comb full of eggs.

Close up of eggs.

Bee Eggs

For those of you wondering what bee eggs look like, here you go.  They look like super tiny grains of rice.  This is new comb our bees built and the queen laid eggs in it already.

After she lays her eggs, the worker bees will take care of the larvae and cap the cells.  That is then what we call capped brood.  Here is a nice example of newly capped brood.