This hive is the stronger of the two hives, Yesterday while doing the inspection on the WH#1 Hive I checked the sugar water on this one and she was bone dry, I put in about a 1/2 Gallon of feed. Today I put in a little more to make sure that they make it through the Week.
I cracked the boxes and they have drawn comb out in 3-4 frames in the 3rd medium box and the queen has been up there recently as there were eggs in all the cells. She has a great laying pattern. In the 2nd Medium there is more drawn comb, lots of capped brood and it doesn’t look like anyone has hatched just yet…hopefully by next weekend we’ll have some baby bees! So I still have next to nothing for drawn comb in box 1 on the bottom, so I took one frame of drawn comb out of box 2 and moved it to the bottom box to see if I could encourage them to start using that.
I didn’t see the Queen in this inspection but new eggs and more comb I know we’re in good shape and she is in there. This is common, we won’t always see her and as the Population increases it will be harder to locate her. If we see new eggs we know she is doing well and the hive is in good shape, that’s why we want to make sure that we are in the hive every 10-12 days this first year. Why 12 days, because we know the hatching timelines: Queen – 15 to 16 days, Worker 21 days, and Drone (male) – 21 Days. We want to make sure that we are giving them the room they need and we prevent them from swarming. I will get into Swarming at a later date.
Thanks for reading! Have a great day!