Got a call this afternoon at 4 pm from my Dad. He told me it looked like the bees of the Beta hive were swarming!!! So I gathered up my gear and other equipment and headed out to the Bee yard.
It was partly sunny, 65ยบ and lightly breezy.
Once on site my Dad and I checked on the girls to see what they were doing.
There were a lot of bees coming and going and flying around in front of the Beta hive. Looks like they didn't like being cooped up for a couple of days. Opened up the hive and found that 7 - 8 frames had drawn comb. So I went a head and installed a second hive body(the frames have small cell foundation). I also replaced the hive cover with a more standard inner cover and top telescoping cover. And since the feeder jar was empty ( it took the girls a week to empty it this time) I removed it. So now the Beta hive has two deep hive bodies.
A detailed hive inspection was not done at this time.
The Alpha hive was also busy but not like the Beta hive.
We opened up the Alpha hive for an inspection.
Since the hive boxes were swapped 22 March, the queen has been VERY busy laying eggs in the top hive box. I was able to see eggs and larva at various stages of maturity in six of the frames we looked at, and we spotted the queen. I carefully put that frame back in and put the other frames in order. I put a queen excluder on and a honey super, as well as a hive top feeder and closed it all up.
I noticed that the bees were busy building comb in the top hive body.
The hive top feeder still had sugar water. Sunday I am thinking of cleaning up the hive top feeder and putting in fresh sugar water.
While looking through the Alpha hive I did spot a couple of hive beetles.
The Alpha hive still has a migratory style top cover. If the new hive top for the Beta hive works well, I will get one for the Alpha hive.
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