Nuc Hive Inspection

Time for the second week inspection of our new hives.

Both appear to be doing fine.

The queen is marked in green representing 2009.

From the outside there didn't appear to be many bees today but once they were opened we could see many bees inside.

I'm taking the advice of many experienced beekeepers and that is to not look for the queen.

A quick glance to see if she's on a frame and then we move on. But if I happen to see her, then we can do a quick photo op.

Today we did see one of the queens.

She was on an outside frame and had laid a few eggs there. The bees need to get busy and finish building combs so the queen can lay more.

They were at about 6.5 frames drawn in the bottom deep so we added the next brood chamber. I'm running a 1.5 system - one deep and a medium as the brood chamber.

Next we checked on last years hives.

I've #1 has 3 supers and still has almost no comb built in the third super - so they've got lots of room which I hope will dispel thoughts of swarming.

Hive #2 with it's one super is now ready for the next one - and here's where I goofed.

I was so busy thinking about the nucs and topping up their sugar water and their next super that I forgot about the older hives and their needs. I did have a bin with some frames so I was able to come up with 8 frames for a super.

Still I'll need to get back out there tomorrow with another frame.