We got two new chickens today.  This one is #12, I am calling her, because of the band on her leg.

Bearding is a common occurrence with bee hives.  Literally, there are too many bees inside the hive, so they hang out outside the hive.  This could be due to crowding, or possibly it's too hot in there.

We have five bee hives.  They are all in the first year.
The first one here I refer to as the "swarm-trap hive" because that was its original purpose.  My friend Forrest caught a swam in a cardboard box.  I decided to put it in the swarm-trap and see how it would do if I left it in there.

This next hive I refer to as the "Blue Ribbon Hive".  I installed a package from the "Fat Bee Man" into this hive at the very end of winter.

This hive I refer to as the "Heart Hive" or "Queenie".  This is because when I installed the package this winter, the queen was DOA.  The Fat Bee Man's son graciously sent me a replacement queen.

This one I call the "spiral hive".  This hive is kind of a Frankenstein.  In late April I installed a Langstroth nuc into this hive, but it isn't a langstroth hive.  So the first half of the hive are the typical Langstroth frames and the second half of the hive are "deep" foundation less frames.

This one I call the "short-cut hive".  It is because of the way I made it.  I was running out of time the day before I had to pick up the nucs from Blue Ridge.  So ended up gluing the three main sections together, skipping the support pieces I included in the "spiral hive".  So far so good!  It is way "bearding" now.