This week at Christ the King clean up of the grounds was performed by a strong group of 15+/- members. Things are looking good for Easter services tomorrow!
Weather was warm this past week, but with a front pushing through Friday night Saturday was unseasonably cool which precluded a thorough inspection. This week we did a cursory inspection looking for signs of swarm preparation and assessed remaining space within the hive with an eye towards adding additional supers if needed.
Hive 1’s expansion into the super provided two weeks ago has slowed as the girls focused on expanding the brood nest horizontally. The have now filled 9 of the 10 frames in the deep and 7 of the 8 frames in the medium hive bodies below the queen excluder. There remain 5 frames of empty or partially drawn foundation in the super above the queen excluder. A few queen cups were removed from the medium body below the super.
Hive 2 took advantage of the warm weather this week to acheive 5 frames of nectar and two frames of partially capped honey in the honey super. In the brood box below, they were busy making queen cups (all found to be dry) and a significant amount of new drone comb, some of which was removed from the bottom of the deep hive body and examined for signs of Varroa (15 capped cells inspected and not Varroa found). Owing to the lack of empty space and the strong performance of Hive 2, another medium honey super was added.
Both queens continue to perform well. The brood patterns are regular and largely complete. Both colonies contain brood of all ages. Below is an image of Hive 2 with its second honey super on.
