A Quick Peek

You would be so proud, really. I went into both hives today and inspected all the frames in the top box of each ALL BY MYSELF. No ABK (Assistant Bee Keeper) to do all the work and talk me through it. I was cool as a cucumber, and oddly, so were the bees. (Lucy and Ethel, the chickens, did not help. They just showed up for the photo session afterwards.)

In the ubercombined hive the bees had eaten through all the newspaper between deeps as if it had never been there, except to make that nice decorative skirting on the outside. There was a little bit of honey and some capped brood on several frames. I saw no uncapped brood, but hoped there was some down below. The brood, which took up about a quarter of several central frames, appeared to be mostly worker brood.

Since it takes 21 days for worker brood to develop, this brood could have been eggs or young larva when we transferred the deep from the other hive.

The far right two frames in that top deep still had just foundation, but there were bees who looked like they were all set up and prepped to draw it out. I'm hopeful about this little hive. I was curious about the bottom deep, but not set for heavy lifting and bee ticking off today.

In super happy hive, I peeked in the top shallow super (there were two deeps and two shallows when I started). The top shallow was absolutely full of lovely uncapped nectar, soon to be honey. So I popped another shallow on top, full of drawn out honey comb, ready to fill.

Next order of business is to buy some more shallow frames to allow continuing expansion. I've already got some shallow hive boxes and five frames of drawn out comb, but would need at least four more frames to add another shallow to the hive.

I used the frame grips so I could keep the smoker or hive tool in one hand while I held a frame with the other. Worked just fine.

I'm feeling ready for my practical (hands on) test for the certified bee keeper exam on June 5. I passed the written, so full steam ahead!