Today's inspections didn't take more than 30 minutes. It was really hot so I was inspired to go quickly, and perhaps now I have a better idea of what I am looking for as well. I was generally pleased with what I found this week.
Hive #1 - As of now this is my strongest hive. What a population boom! Lots of activity at the entrance and plenty of new little faces to greet me. Box #1 (on the bottom) is full. Saw eggs and brood in varying stages. Box #2 is mostly full, with only frame #1 being empty. Frame 2 is 1/2 full and frame 8 is about 1/4 full. Mostly brood but honey and pollen stores look good too. Queenie has been doing an outstanding job! Saw some drone cells and a few drones wandering the hive, but not many. Box #3 is still empty. Hopefully it will fill up in the next few weeks. Since things looked so good in this hive I removed frame #5 from box 2 to give the Schoolhouse Hive a boost. I am raising the strength of this hive up from 50% to 75%. YAHOO!!!
Swarm Hive #2 - This hive is moving along nicely. I accidentally inspected the boxes in reverse order, so Box #1 did not get a thorough inspection, but I could see it is mostly full. Box #2 is about 1/2 full with frames #1, 6-8 still unused, frames 4-5 are about 1/2 full and frames 2-3 about 1/2 to 3/4 full. Queen was sighted on frame #4. Box #3 is still unused. Considering how new this hive is, I am pleased with how well it is progressing. I am estimating this hive strength at about 70%. I am relieved at how quickly this hive has gotten up to speed and have high hopes that it will fill up before winter.
Schoolhouse Hive #3 - This poor little hive is really struggling to get itself going. Yesterday I removed the largest piece of comb which came from the old hive. It was the piece which was too mangled to get into a frame. The bees were clinging to it (instead of working) even though there really wasn't much of anything to salvage. I figured it needed to be removed to motivate the bees to move to and start working on the frames. The other two combs which I put into a frame look okay, with a few capped cells, so I left them in. There wasn't much activity on them though. I will likely remove them next week as they don't look like they will be productive beyond what is currently in them. The queen was sighted walking on the bottom board. I removed a frame of brood from hive #1 to give this one a boost. The bees went to it quickly. Hopefully this will boost their morale and help build enough numbers to get them going before fall. Is it possible that a hive could be depressed? They do seem like they perked up after adding the new frame. I am estimating the hive strength at about 20%. It will be amazing if this one pulls through the winter. Perhaps I should put them in an observation hive(?). I also moved the entrance feeder to the top of the frames since the other hives were robbing the feeder.
Today I learned something new: I can see why people would use escape screens or fume boards to empty out a super. It is a real pain using a bee brush to remove bees from full frames (especially when they are less than happy about you being there to begin with). - I did however have the pleasure of seeing two new bees hatching today. They were so cute. I also learned that they are quite helpless after hatching. One of them fell off the frame, so I had to pick it up and deliver it back home. Poor thing.
So, this week's inspection went well, but I forgot to check for mites. I'll wash off and check the IPM board this week for sure!
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