Goofy Bees

It has been almost 4 weeks since the bees swarmed. That is enough time for the queen to have laid eggs and the brood to have hatched. It is also about a week and a half since I combined the hives. So, I needed to go in today to check on the status of things. Doug Shaw was in town and it was good to have a buddy with me.

The first hive, which is the split hive, was very full. There was honey and bees everywhere. All the supers were full, including the top box (white and on its side in the photo), which was the original brood box from the package hive. So, I added an empty super. The frames have new foundation in them so the bees will need to draw it. I think the bees in this hive are pretty ambitious. We'll see how they do.


The second hive, which is the swarm hive, was not so progressive. When I did the swarm capture, I put a brood box with new foundation in it. The bees had not drawn a single frame. There was also a brand new super. The bees had only drawn part of a couple of frames. The third box up must have started with some drawn comb, because that was where the queen was. It is a small super, so there isn't much room to lay eggs, but there was capped brood there.

I'm relieved that the queen is laying, but disturbed that there hasn't been any more progress at drawing comb or laying nectar up.

Here is my plan. On Monday, Doug and I are going to take the top box off of the split hive and extract honey from it. I will let bees clean off the left over honey so that the frames are clean. I guess I will just put the box outside the hives and let the bees go to town. I expect it won't take them long. Then, once it is pretty clean, I will put the box in the swarm hive. I have yet to figure out exactly where I will place it. My current thinking is to place the current brood box (the small super) at the bottom of the hive and put the brood box directly above it. I doubt the queen will want to move down, so offering her drawn comb to move up into sounds like the most reasonable alternative. I may also shift around some other boxes, but I'm not sure. There is a nearly empty box with just a little drawn comb that is now just above the brood super. If I take it away and there are eggs laid there, I wouldn't like that. So I may keep it in the hive but above the true brood box. I'm thinking.