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I've been keeping this blog for all of my beekeeping years and I am beginning my 19th year of beekeeping in April 2024. Now there are more than 1300 posts on this blog. Please use the search bar below to search the blog for other posts on a subject in which you are interested. You can also click on the "label" at the end of a post and all posts with that label will show up. At the very bottom of this page is a list of all the labels I've used.

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I began this blog to chronicle my beekeeping experiences. I have read lots of beekeeping books, but nothing takes the place of either hands-on experience with an experienced beekeeper or good pictures of the process. I want people to have a clearer picture of what to expect in their beekeeping so I post pictures and write about my beekeeping saga here.Master Beekeeper Enjoy with me as I learn and grow as a beekeeper.

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Thursday, March 05, 2009

Good Hive Inspection News

Today was warm and lovely. I took the opportunity to inspect well two of my hives. First I opened Aristaeous2. This hive was a swarm gathered on April 1 last year.

The bottom box held no bees, no brood, no stores. I took it off of the hive. I now have a box of beautiful drawn comb in medium frames to use somewhere else.

The second box looked like this when I opened it. The bees looked good in this hive. It is a very active hive, often flying in temperatures that surprise me. I expect it to have a really good year.



I pulled a frame from the second box and found good examples of what you can see during good brood production. In case you haven't seen them before, the yellow arrow from the yellow number 1 below points to eggs. Seeing these lets me know that the queen is alive and well.

The yellow arrow by the number 2 points to tiny c-shaped larvae. If you click on this photo so you can see it larger, you'll see examples of brood in all stages of development. The arrow from the number 3 points to capped brood. The queen is laying all around the capped brood, filling in the frame.

I didn't see her but I didn't need to because the evidence is so present.

I left the hive smaller but stronger and look forward to adding another box on the top of this hive very soon.

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3 comments:

  1. Great pictures (as usual)!

    Is the bottom box where the bees started off before Winter and they've moved up? How will you know when to put another brood box on?

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  2. Yes, the bees were in this box at the beginning of winter. I'll add another box this weekend because they are using, I think about 6 of the 8 frames in the now bottom box. I'll probably check the honey super as well. It felt pretty full yesterday and I'll put a third box on and move every other honey frame up and add an empty frame in its place (checkerboard pattern).

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