Fresh off vacation, I had to wait for a good day to do my inspection.
EH#2 was booming, lots of activity. So I smoked them and then popped the cover. I had a feeding shim on and they had made all kinds of bridge comb and made it really hard to get the inter cover off. I got all this:
I continued the inspection, lots of comb, capped brood, and eggs! We’re doing good here. The had used all the space in the top two boxes, so I decided that this was the time to move the bottom box to the top to convince them it was a good part of their home to build in.
WH#1 had very little activity 😔… I was pretty sure I would find the same thing as last time. So I popped the cover and there was only 3 1/2 frames of bees 🐝 in there (that’s bad news). I checked all the frames and no Queen, lots of honey stored, and lots of drones from the laying worker issue they had earlier. I took the hive down to one box to make it easier for them to keep warm.
Now what to do? I called around to see if I could find a Queen. I located one and set up pick up for Saturday AM.
Here are a few pictures from that hive:
