Fall Inspection Today

Seems weird to say the word 'Fall' when its 80 degrees out but it's time to do a full inspection of the hives to ensure we're set up well to make it through the winter. The hives fared hurricane Irene just fine along with the rains from the left over storm that was hurricane Lee but then the east coast has been hit with days and days of more rain. No bees were flying! As a result, the OV hive, which didn't have a feeder on it, fed from their reserves of honey. The Sasha hive fared better because I've been feeding them all along.

The reports on the inspection:

OV HIVE................................................

The OV hive had nearly 4 frames of honey in the super but they are now down to 2 frames with very little honey on them. There is no honey whatsoever in the brood boxes. The hive is full of bees which, to my surprise, were really gentle. They're busy bringing in lots of pollen in white, yellow and orange with lots of waggle-dancing on the frames.

I'm really happy with the queen's brood pattern. Since there is not the usual honey in the corners of the frames, she filling those cells with brood. Most of the brood continues to be in the top two boxes but there is some in the bottom box, too.

I removed the queen excluder and put the top feeder on. Will now concentrate on building up their reserves for the winter.

SASHA HIVE...........................................

Sash II initially had me confused as she's much darker than I knew her to be... almost as dark as Sasha I. (I needed to compare photos once back in the house to make sure I wasn't seeing the old queen!) While Sasha II is certainly different looking you can see that her abdomen has thickened much more since she was last photographed.

The bees still have not yet drawn out the top box! As you can see, the population of the hive is really good but they are concentrated across two medium supers instead of three. The brood is good on a couple of frames and spotty on others because the bees have taken to storing nectar in those vacant cells. That concerns me so will plan to  move a couple of drawn frames from the honey super of the OV hive to the top box next week if the hive doesn't start working drawing out the top box.

As as aside, I'm going to enter some honey in the Charles County Fair next. Wish me, or rather the OV bees, luck!