4June2018

4June2018

Since new bees were installed in late April thanks to a donation of a queen and a box of bees with combs and frames from Dave Harrod, finally got around to poking around the hive today. The hive had been installed with another box on top containing four frames of honey (food) from the old hive that died over winter. Today opened old hive first so I can have another box and pretty clean frames with foundations. Discovered a colony of carpenter ants had set up in the top of the hive between the lid and cover. Put cover and lid on ground so they can scurry away (and be eaten by birds) and cleaned a box and found four frames.

Took lid off new hive and discovered bees had created combs from scratch under cover.

The combs were also attached to inside of box (see upper right).

I decided to preserve the new combs and removed the small pieces from inside the box. Without looking in the bottom box, all the combs showed honey, capped cells, and nectar. It was getting too dark to see any brood, but I guess they were on the bottom since the hive was very busy.

In the second box, split the frames - two to each side - and inserted four frames with pretty clean foundation.

Added third box and replaced lid with attached comb. Hopefully I'll figure out how to best address keeping combs that are not on frames.