April 26 Source Hive Check

I was going to check on my top-bar in the backyard yesterday, but it was so rainy and windy I decided to let them be. It's a nice, not too hot, but sunny day. I went out at 11:15am and there was gentle sun on the hive and lots of activity at the entrance.

My agenda for today was is to check on the feeder, make sure the queen made it out of the cage and see if I can detect her, and take a general look.

Feeder: They were still feeding from it, and from the weight check, it felt about half-full. I'm using the syrup that came with them in the package, but I think on my next check (in a week) I will simply remove it and put regular sugar water inside.

I discussed the feeding with a local beekeeper, Jessie Brown, who has had 10 years experience, and she said that it would be best to keep feeding them through the summer, so I will do that. Most sources say that once they start making honey, you should leave them alone, but Jessie said that you can't predict the weather and you don't want to stress them as they are making all their resources for the hive.

Queen: Scooting the bars back until I reached where they were building, I found the queen cage. A quick look showed that it was empty, so the queen must have gotten out. I looked for her quickly, but didn't see her, and will make that my primary goal for next week.

Comb: The bees are going gangbusters making comb! They have about 8 bars they are working on, and at least three of them are full comb now, though I stopped after the first four bars. I think that next week I will look at all of them, looking for evidence of the queen and brood, and see how far along they are. If they have that much comb, I may want to space some of it out, especially if I find that they are doing well with brood.

Unfortunately, possibly where there was some residual wax on the bottom, they have built a layer of comb on the bottom board. I know I don't want it there, but it's the only one that they have put anything in: nectar and what appeared to be pollen! On the one hand, I don't want to take their nascent resources. On the other, it's uncapped nectar, so trying to scrape it up and attach it to a bar is probably a bad idea, as all of the nectar will just run out. So I'm going to check with some folks to see what they think I should do.

My next check will be on Tuesday, May 2.