April 28th 2024
The bees have been here just over a week and it was time for their first checkup. Both hives are doing really well! They are so much more gentle than the bees we had last year. It was so windy outside and they barely got mad at us for lifting the roof off their house. Neither hive has drank much of the sugar syrup we left them. We think this is because they don't have space to store it yet.
The bees are busy building new comb to hold the honey. We gave each hive one extra frame with plastic foundation to make it easier to draw comb and four empty frames. Plastic foundations are great for quickly building comb but the built-in honeycomb pattern doesn't allow for different sized cells. The foundationless frames give the bees a place to comfortably make the larger drone cells.
We expected the bees to take full advantage of the plastic foundations, but we found that the second hive is very industrious and has almost completely filled one of the empty frames! Last summer the bees took months to fill out one empty frame and these bees have done it in a week. We forgot to check how the first hive liked their foundationless frames, but we'll check next time.
Both hives had eggs and larvae present so the queens are around somewhere laying eggs. This is a good sign. Both hives seem to have settled in and are making progress.
