Summer Waxing Grandchildren Moon
Hive inspections today focused on the need for additional honey supers. The package colony had the third hive box about 80% drawn out with honey and brood, so I stuck a honey super on it. The divide has two hive boxes. As Dave suggested when he came out a week ago Tuesday, I had left the queen excluder off. I put it back on today, carefully checking both honey supers to see if the queen had gone up into them. She hadn’t. At least I don’t think so. She has a mark and I didn’t see one on any of the bees, but I did see a large, unusual looking darker backed bee. Sort a bee goliath. Probably a drone. The divide bees have not done much in the two empty supers, so we’ll have to see. I may stick a frame from a parent colony super in one of the divide’s supers.
The parent colony has done a good bit of work. One honey super filled up a while ago. The second one I put on with it has begun to take on weight. The other two have a good bit of drawn comb, but not much weight yet. A filled honey super weighs around 50 pounds, plenty for this guy to lift.
I did take one full frame out of the honey super already filled and replaced it with an empty one. The full frame will be part of the Woolly meal on Monday night. Just what we’ll use it for is not yet decided.
