Inspecting the hives

Because of Father's Day and the birth of my first grandbaby, I had house visitors. My daughter Becky took these pictures of my hive inspection this weekend.

First I blow the tiniest smoke announcement at the front of the hive to let the bees know that I am about to disrupt their day. This will be my first inspection in two weeks due to the robbing activity that was happening. If I find no evidence of robbing, I'll remove the robber screens.


In the second picture, I've removed the top cover and the inner cover and am about to work on the top super of Destin. I lifted it off and found that it was really light. The bees had not drawn out the foundation and there was little honey in this super. We are not in a honey flow at this time in Georgia, so I imagine this super will not be drawn out this year - disappointment.
I use a little smoke on top of the second super before I removed it. It was very heavy and full of mostly capped honey. Most of the frames were capped on the side nearest the center and uncapped on the outside facing side of the frame.
I usually stack the supers on the side and inspect them there. Today I needed to go all the way down because my plan is to put a slatted rack between the screened bottom board and the brood super - the deep one on the bottom.

(You can see the slatted rack leaning against the tree in the first picture)