5/21 Inspection

On Monday, 5/21 I went back into the hives at my house to check on a couple things: Hill Hive: queen progress/presence and transplanted brood frame progress; Pink Hive: brood super usage

Hill hive: To my pleasant surprise I found this colony to be expanding a little onto some of the unpulled frames.  Also, the beetle trap had about ten beetles in it.  I didn't notice many free-ranging beetles either, so I think they might be getting ahead of that problem.  It probably doesn't hurt that the frame of brood I'd transplanted into this hive has 95%+ emerged at this point, so there are more bees to harass the beetles and do other useful things like draw comb.  For the second inspection in a row I failed to find the queen that I spotted back on the 10th.  However, I saw a few groups of larvae and even some capped brood on old comb (not the easy-to-see freshly pulled stuff.  So perhaps just because of the dark wax I've been missing some signs of the queen.  I'm still under the impression that this queen is young and probably not fully up to speed with laying yet. Though seeing some reproduction is extremely encouraging.

Next visit to this hive I'll be looking for continued progress with generating brood.  I intend to take a small flashlight for peering down into the dark comb to see what I now assume I've been missing.

Pink Hive: This colony continues to appear to thrive.  They've completely filled the medium super I'd given them to expand the brood box.  There's some brood, and LOTS of honey (or syrup) stowed away up there making the medium frames quite heavy.  To my inexperienced eye, this medium led me to believe they were in risk of getting honey bound.  So I introduced a queen excluder and another medium with 9 frames in hopes of giving them some more storage space and maybe getting some honey this year.  I didn't go into the deep hive body, and I didn't hunt for the queen.  I worry a bit that I'm neglecting them because of their success... I'm sure they don't mind.

Like the Hill Hive, these bees seem to be getting ahead of their beetle infestation.  I didn't notice many at all.  I guess the traps are helping.

This brings me to some concerns I have about honey.  I'm optimistic that there's still enough nectar flow to allow them to partially fill the new super.  Prior to adding the honey super I'd stopped feeding syrup 4+ days prior and was able to shake some moisture out of the honey frames.  I've heard that's a good indication that they're still getting nectar from somewhere.  I do still see a fair amount of blooms around my area, but it might be getting late in the season considering what a hot, dry year we're having.  All this to say, I'm alternating between cautiously optimistic and slightly pessimistic about my chances of getting any sort of reward this spring.  Oh well, my goal for the first year as a beekeeper was to keep the bees alive and successfully manage their population.  Honey is supposed to be an afterthought this year, but it's so tempting!