A Glorious Inspection Day!

Good afternoon! What a glorious day here in Gurnee. 75 degrees without a cloud in the sky. Unbelievable day and my bees thought so too. They were bringing in all kinds of pollen when I got to their hive. They had a happy hum going throughout and we only used a minimum of smoke to inspect the hive. 

The good news is they built up enough comb on the frames that I was able to add another brood box. The bad news is, I have no pictures of it. I was working alone in my hive as Tim hurt his back and was doing other things. I did not see Victoria, but boy has she done some laying since last Friday! There was capped brood all over and the girls had built up the wax on all frames except one side of one of the outer frames. Exciting! Their numbers have increased as well! All of the new bees are working hard as cleaners, nurse bees feeding the new babies, and some are now old enough to build wax. If you remember the chart I posted a few weeks back, they have jobs at certain points in their short lives.

The older package bees have been dying off. There are some foragers heading out still but the number at the front porch were smaller than I remember. That will change in about a week. The ones building wax will soon be guarding the fort then leaving the hive to bring back pollen and nectar. It's so exciting! I'll try to get some shots next week when I get to check a second brood box in addition to the one on the first floor.

Because Tim's back was angry at him, I helped him do some things to his hives, like pick up boxes and put hives back together so he didn't have to bend. He's a good egg. I was happy to help him with whatever he needed. :)

The view from atop the honey super on Tim's big hive

Tim's biggest hive has two honey supers on it already. The top box is nearly full and holy heck that thing was HEAVY! It was easily 40-50 pounds! I had to lift that box so he could add a 3rd box! It's only June 2nd and the nectar flow is ON! These girls are working hard and were less than happy that we were taking their boxes apart. One of them followed me all the way back to the house while trying to sting my face. Thank goodness for veils! Gotta keep your eyeballs safe!

Here's another shot from the honey super. You can see how many girls are working hard in there. It's really amazing to watch and listen to them up close. 

Four of the hives on the property (minus the big hive with honey supers) needed to be replenished with bee juice. They are thirsty and building wax on their frames like crazy. The essential oils in the juice really help with the wax production. Soon the boxes of frames will be finished and they will be able to find food on their own. You don't want to feed sugar water when you have a honey super on. They will just store the sugar water and it won't be honey.

So, looking toward next week, my girls will hopefully have a couple frames of drawn comb in the new brood box. Victoria will keep laying in all the new wax they've drawn in the lower box and the new bees will keep changing jobs, being promoted along the way.

I got this awesome shot of one of Tim's girls while she was taking a breather on the honey frame.

Until next time, bee kind 🐝