July 19, 2019 Honey Super Added

July 19, 2019  Big day of adding a honey super with the queen excluder for anticipated honey production that I will remove during the fall after bees have finished foraging for the year and have settled in for the winter. The bees were covering all frames in the second box and were not at all bothered by my uncovering the hive. I did not remove any frames to minimize the disturbance today.

Queen excluder keeps her from laying in honey box

The honey super is 6 5/8" high

Looking like a "real" hive now!

July 16 2019 Hive check

2 month hive check. Already two months have passed since the arrival of the bees! Have been gone for nine days while friend Sarah stayed at the house and continued syrup for the bees. She told me bees had emptied the feeder completely three days in a row while I was away so I expected to see comb in the upper box. And was there ever comb! All frames had comb and the frames at each end were about half completed. See picture of end frame below. The middle combs had capped honey; that comb wax is white which indicates they are using the syrup for construction whereas the uncapped honey is colored so I know it is nectar. However, there is nectar in the end combs which I'm thinking is being stored for use in comb construction. Wow! Wow I say, how amazing!! 

At first I was concerned about all the cross combing that I saw...and then realized that this is the storage space for winter honey and I need to let the bees arrange it as they will. No interference needed from me. See picture of third frame below.

I put the hive back together, added more syrup and will check hive later this week to see if the last two frames are filled with comb and then will add the western super with queen screen.