This was our first inspection of the bees with their two-deep brooding hives. We hunkered down for a long look.
We went in while the sun was still up. There were a few bees still flying in and out, and that turned into a bit of an angry cloud during the inspection. Kristi got stung through her glove once.
It had apparently been a little too long since we’d inspected — there was a ton of burr comb around, and a lot of it, in between the two boxes, had some really large larvae in it. I don’t know if bees move their babies around, but seriously. There were a few slips with the hive tool while trying to clear the burr comb; I haven’t felt this awful about an inspection for a long time. I don’t think we significantly altered the population of the hive, but there were a lot of dead bees, larval and adult, by the time we were done.
We saw the Queen of the West again; she sure is a strong one. Lots of new eggs in the second brooding box, and another 4-6 frames of capped brood, too.
The Eastern hive is doing well, also, but I’m a little more worried there; it was the second hive we did, so we were a little more tired, but we had a hard time finding eggs in the eastern hive. I’m pretty sure we found a few, but generally, the Eastern Queen seems to be more pedestrian in her laying power. We’ll see how that translates into honey later.
We’d had a bit of a mixup with the sugar syrup; last time, I ended up making it too thin; a 1:2 ratio instead of a 1:1. Apparently 1:2 makes the queen rear more brood, while 1:1 induces comb production. Both are needed right now, but we need to get the syrup right.
Both hives (and all 4 boxes) looked about the same; a lot of capped brood in the center, going to larvae, then eggs towards the sides, with the outer 3 frames on each box essentially unused. The brood comb that’s been used once is really dark brown, and some of it is still being cleaned out and readied for new laying.
We saw one drone; they are so huge compared to the workers! And the new bees are cute; super fuzzy and yellow furred. The bees are all still pretty yellow compared to what I was expecting.
It’s funny, but now that I’m used to what our bees look like, I can distinguish between at least 3 distinct species of bees that populate our peony bush; huge bumblebees in a variety of colors, and teeny bees that I assume are mason bees, along with our lot. Unfortunately, the yellow jackets seem to like the peonies, too. grr.
We ran only cotton in the smoker this time. Burned through a whole smokerful and had to reload close to the end. the grass in the spout trick works great to extinguish.
We made up a new batch of syrup (with the correct 1:1 ratio this time) and I’ll deploy that tomorrow.
I’m not happy with the inspection we did, but I am glad to know what’s going on inside the hive, and to see that the new brood box is working just fine. In the next few weeks, we’ll need to put on a super for the blackberry nectar flow.