18 March, Noon - 2011

It was 75º, clear skies, no wind at the Back Yard Bees.

Opened up the hive and found bees covering 3/4 of the inner cover. I installed a honey super, see what that does for now. Didn't get down into any of the hive bodies today.

1:30 pm
It was 83º at the Bee Yard and clear skies.

No signs of ants around the hives

Beta hive

The hive had 1 honey super and 2 deep hive bodies. There were bees covering all ten frames of the honey super. I removed frames 1,2,3 and found eggs! So I put them and pulled the honey super to gain access to the hive bodies. The top hive body had bees covering all ten frames. I did not remove any to inspect. I removed the top hive body to look at the bottom hive body. The bees covered all ten frames. This hive seems to be very strong. So I added a third deep hive body but installed it with the honey super at the top. I am hoping that the bees will build up this new hive body and then I can do a walk away split.

Alpha Hive

The cluster moved to the center of the hive body. The bees cover about 5 frames. I found the queen on frame 6! I did find eggs too. Next visit if I will see about taking frames from the Beta Hive to strengthen this hive.