We checked the frames last night. The queens are doing beautifully and its thrilling. Hive 1 has 80% of its frames full of brood and/or honey so we put another super on top so they will have more room. Hive 2 has about 60% so we will wait another week before adding a super. From what I understand, the queen will continue to lay eggs going up and won't go back down so you want to have the bottom super almost full before adding another. Brood and honey are in patches around the frames. In the winter, the "cluster" of honeybees will move around the hive and have access to the honey in different places.
This is Hive 1 after lifting the inner cover. We used a little smoke so that the bees would go down into the frames enabling us to gently scrape away this patch of honey cells.
Regrettably, this picture is blurry but we were trying to move quickly through the frames so as not to disturb them so much. The darker colored cells are brood and the pale white cells at the top are honey.
They were so beautiful and as before, it was humbling to work with them. I can only hope that even in light of our ignorance of their work, we'll do right by them.
2 comments:
Neat. Not something I could do but neat. I hope you enjoy yourself.
So fascinating. I wish I lived where I could keep bees. I wish you much success!
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