You can click on images to see more detail!
The queen is longer than workers and drones and is marked to show her age 
Eggs can be seen at the bottom of the honeycomb cells 
Eggs grow and transform into larvae after day 3 
The worker larvae are fed and covered with a wax lid 
Workers collect pollen – the hive protein, fed to the queen and young. 
Pollen is collected and carried back to the hive in ‘baskets’ on the bees legs 
A sealed queen cell contains a future queen, a sign the current queen is old, or the hive is overcrowded and likely to swarm 
Honeybees collect nectar and place it in frames of honeycomb 
The comb is built by wax building bees. We provide a starter strip to encourage them to build in a manageable way. They still do their own thing though! 
Once the nectar reaches the correct water content (below 18%) the bees will cap the honeycomb with a thin layer of wax 
Honey cells being capped 
To extract the honey, we remove the cappings 
Then spin the frames in an extractor to remove the honey 
The extractor drains through a coarse filter into a bucket ready for jarring
