I decided it was going to be a quick inspection, that is, if we found a queen in hive #2 (AKA the weak hive). I was hoping that there was a queen because, really, who would not want a queen? If we did not have a queen, I would have to lift the heavy second box on #1 and dig through the whole hive.
But we were lucky. As I looked at #2, I noticed eggs. As I tried to show my photographer the eggs, she cried out that she had spotted the queen!
They have plenty of pollen and honey, so they should start to build up for the fall flow.
On to hive #1. I was only going to look into the top box to see what comb they had drawn out. As we took off the lid and propolis trap, we were greeted by a strange crunching noise. We looked through the frames and noticed that the balsa wood comb guides had been gnawed, so we decided that the crunching noise was coming from the bees roughing up the guides for the comb to have a better grip.
The bees had started to draw out some comb on the two frames adjacent to the drawn ones in the top box.
I also removed some burr comb that was made on one of the drawn frames.
The Lord is a marvel and you have the privilege of seeing! So glad you have a new queen❣️ I couldn’t find the queen in the photo thanks for showing where she was 😊 Keep updating this is great🥰
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Wish we had some nice white wax like that this time of year. We’re in our typical summer dearth. Won’t see wax like that again till next spring, ugh.
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I don’t think we have much of a dearth around here,being surrounded with old, overgrown orchard land. I think it is very amazing how the bees draw out the foundationless frames.
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