Memorial Day Weekend Inspections

My son Jack and I peeked into the Langstroths on Sunday to check on the comb building and to add a second deep to Felix.

Felix is building out comb nicely on the foundationless frames.  The nuc I installed was full foundation and even one plastic frame, but they are taking to foundationless just fine. To give them a clue that they should start building in the new deep, I moved a frame that had only comb with some stores on it into the new one.

Oscar is coming along nicely.  The brood chamber has comb that extends below where the bottom bars would normally be on standard frames.  There are empty cells where there were previously capped brood which means new bees have hatched out.  The queen was spotted and all signs point to continued laying as I saw capped and uncapped brood.  They are also starting to store honey across the tops of the combs.  The honey reserve box with empty frames showed no sign of being built on, so I swapped a frame from the brood chamber with comb on it up into the reserve box.  I removed the bottom bar from reserve #7 frame and stuck it on brood #7 frame.  Hopefully the bees will take the hint and start building on the reserve frames.

Next inspection is slated for June 12th, weather permitting.  I want to give the bees a couple of weeks to work undisturbed.

The Felix bees had no problem switching to foundationless

Another foundationless frame from Felix

Felix with the second deep installed

Oscar brood frame with a drone cell visible (yellow bump in the middle)