First Honey Supers!

I went in and checked the hives on Tuesday evening...7/20.  The bees were very calm and pleasant...didn't need veil or gloves and minimal smoke.  Couple times I had an individual bee chase me around but I smoked the heck out of her and the hive and that seemed to distract her enough.

With two deeps on, it is a bit more difficult to do a full check of the hive.  First I had to loosen the top deep enough to remove it...and boy was it heavy!!  I then set it aside and started going through the bottom deep.  The frames were pretty much all in use with brood, pollen, honey storage, etc.  Found the queen on one of the frames where it was evident that brood had recently hatched.  I thanked her for all her hard work...  I went through the hive far enough to check out the drone frame.  I need to start practicing swapping out drone frames and freezing them over night.  This is done to kill off large number of varroa mites that tend to favor drone brood due to their incubation period being longer than worker brood.  Killing off drones does not harm the hive really as they don't do much work anyway.  Their only purpose is to mate with virgin queens...

Anyhow, I put the top deep back on and began going through those frames.  Quite a few were packed full of pollen and/or honey.  Nearly all of the frames were in use...time to put on a honey super for sure!  Between the top deep and the honey super I placed a "queen excluder" which is like a grate that is sized to allow worker bees through but the queen out.  This will ensure that the honey frames will be just that...and won't have eggs and larvae mixed in when it comes time to extract...yuck!

I neglected to take pictures this time...:(  Bummer.  I'll go in again in a week or so to see how they progress with the honey super...I'll be sure to take pictures then.