Ok, I think I made the ladies angry today. First off it was a little cooler and less sunny than I would like it to have been to enter the hive, but my available days are limited so I needed to take the chance. Once inside the hive I counted the full frames; there were six full leaving half of another and 3 not drawn out. There seem to be plenty of bees. I also saw quite a bit of larva and new eggs in cells that had been used by sisters before them. This is very encouraging and a step in the right direction. I am curious, though as to why they haven't drawn all the comb out. Maybe the population density doesn't merit it yet. Of interest is the fact that they occupy the left hand side(if you are facing the hive) of the hive. Not sure why this is but it is interesting. I also noticed that they have filled all the foundation seams to the frames, except for small opening at the bottom of the frames. These must be access points allowing them to go from frame to frame across the hive without having to go up or down. Smart.
Wondering if I could encourage them to draw out the last three and a half frames I decided to move things around a little bit. I moved the core of the brood space to the right by 2 frames leaving only a pollen stored frames in position 1 from the left. I then took 2 empty frames and put them in positions 2 and 3. The core of the brood space now occupies 4 to 8. I placed the last empty frame in position 9 and filled slot 10 with the half drawn frame. The half drawn frame has no eggs nor brood and seems to be only nectar storage. Hopefully this is not a bad idea. I don't think it will hurt the bees only cause a little bit of disorder and probably set them back a couple of days. I am probably just anxious to get the second hive body on top. I also realized I should probably number the frames with a sharpie marker. I will do that next time.
I am getting more comfortable holding the frames and taking my time with inspections while the bees are crawling on my arms. Just takes a little bit of practice. I saw a hive beetle today and managed to crush the little bugger. Still having a small ant problem. They are not in the hive but definitely like the top feeder. No ant trail was visible today but I did see many dead ants floating in the syrup in the feeder. Yuck. This needs a thorough cleaning. Maybe next time I need to replace the syrup. I see no need to do it prematurely.
I mentioned I think I made them angry. Well I got stung today. It was the second time. Both times were my fault because I wasn't watching were I was putting my fingers and accidentally squashed a bee. I feel bad about that. The throbbing in my finger won't let me forget.
That's all for now thanks.
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