A few days ago I headed out to the hive to do a quick inspection to see if the frame feeder was empty and to check on the progress of the 3rd super I added. The feeder was bone dry so I removed it, however the bees hadn't made any progress on drawing comb on any of the frames. Being that I wasn't doing a real inspection I figured I'd save deeper analysis for later.
Today was a gorgeous day, hot and sunny without a trace of wind. I packed up all my gear and headed out to see how the bees were doing. Activity around the hive was looking good, I always take time each visit to watch the bees behaviour coming and going from the hive. A lot of beekeepers will tell you that you can always tell if there are any issues in the hive by what is going on at the front entrance. My girls looked just fine, in fact they're working hard to keep the house cool. Bees regulate the temperature in the hive all by themselves. If it's too cold they will huddle together and vibrate their flight muscles to generate heat and if it's too hot they will use their wings to force air through the hive. Here you can see the bees lined up in a row fanning their little wings to keep the air flowing, it was the same up at the top entrance with the exception that the bees were facing the other way. Blow air in one entrance, suck it out the other. Smart creatures indeed.
Fanning air out of the bottom entrance.
Fanning air into the top entrance.
The bees had started drawing comb on the new frames, there were even a flew places where the honey was capped. Once the bees have gathered enough nectar they will use their wings to fan the nectar so that it loses moisture and when it finally reaches the proper viscosity they will cover the cell with wax. When I moved into the box below I was extremely happy to see that the outer most frame was completely capped with honey, there was a small patch of pollen at the bottom but mostly honey. Bees always build their nests in a ball shaped pattern, the core of the ball is where they raise brood and as you move towards the edge they store pollen and then finally honey. The outer most frames are usually solid honey. This layer of honey also serves as insulation in order to keep the brood nest at the correct temperature to raise young.
Outer frame fully honey, and a small bit of pollen at the bottom.
As I moved towards the center of the box I found solid capped brood that was topped by capped honey. In the picture below you can get a sense of how the ball shape forms. The top of the frame is covered in capped honey, and as you move down you see the different shades of yellow pollen, finally the capped brood goes to the very bottom. If you imagine this as the upper cross section, the capped brood would continue on the frame below in the lowest box. The laying pattern of this queen isn't stellar as there are a few missed cells with no capped brood. Overall not a great concern because a higher percentage of the cells did have eggs laid in them.
A visual cross section of the "brood ball".
I was very tempted to take one of the outer frames of honey to come home with, but I decided against it. The bees are doing a fine job and I imagine they will probably be able to fill up the top box with honey by the end of August. I was speaking with Mario and his neighbour to the south has an Alfalfa field. Alfalfa has two blooming periods because it grows so well and gets cut down after the first bloom. Turns out the second bloom will be starting within the week. With any luck my bees will be working their little hearts out to gather some stores for winter and maybe, just maybe, some excess I can keep for myself. I really don't want to steal everything because I think it's best for bees to eat honey over winter as apposed to sugar water feed. As I read on the bee forums, "Until you have a colony of bees survive it's first winter you are a bee haver, not a beekeeper." Here's hoping.
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