Lots of Stores for Winter

Silly photo, I know but I'm
feeling silly today!

Inspected just the top box of both hives today as they've done a great job sealing everything up with propolis and wanted to disturb the hives as little as possible while checking on their stores.

The OV hive still has a good population of bees and was again quite feisty. I wear a jacket / veil combo that zips together around the neck and one determined guard bee managed to sneak its way inside the veil via the tiny gap where the zipper ends don't quite meet. The words of Dave Morris of BUMBA came to mind... "Squish it or suffer the consequences." You can bet I squished it against the side of my chin and fast!

The OV hive has a eight medium frames full but it is mostly uncapped yet. There were plenty of bees up there fanning away so I'm sure it will be capped in no time and the population will die off to a comfortable level for winter.

The Sasha hive has about half the amount of bees and 6 full medium frames nearly all capped with another half of the adjoining frames uncapped. This hive had stopped taking from the feeder nearly two weeks ago so figured they were ready.

Last year, I had just the OV hive and it went into winter with 5-6 frames so feel both hives are well prepared this year.