Tuesday, June 29, 2010

6/29/10: Seventh Inspection

Conditions: Sunny, 70F
Present: Bud F. and I
Equipment: Added a second honey super to each hive
Activities: Smoked hives about 6:15pm. Inspected honey supers in both hives. Inspected deep super for brood in the new hive.
Observations:

New Hive:
Lots of bees and the honey super was full, but not fully capped. Changed number of frames in super from 10 to 9 and used 9 frame spacer. After the initial inspection we made up more frames and added a new honey super beneath the full one. Really want to stay ahead of them providing space to not have a late swarm. Finally spotted the queen, who is marked. She’s a fat one and laying happy. I’m thrilled she’s almost keeping up with the overwintered hive.

Old Hive:
Lots of bees and the honey super was full, but not fully capped. Changed number of frames in super from 10 to 9 and used 9 frame spacer. This colony is working faster as they had a 5 frame setback during the last inspection and still caught up to the new hive. (The 5 frames were destroyed due to excessive drone comb)

We should be able to remove a frame of capped honey from each hive to go down to 9 frames in the new supers at the next inspection, 1.5 to 2 weeks from now.

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