Inspection

Well the July honey flow is over. Or is it? I'm not sure I ever noticed that the acacias (a.k.a. locusts) were in bloom. Did I sleep through it? Or was the spring too cold?

I put another deep on the Josephium. They look like their going great. I put a fresh gallon of feed on top of the new deep; they had drained their previous pail.

The Benedictium looks like it's doing fine. They too had drained their pail, so I put on a fresh gallon.

My plan today was to put the bee-escape between the Salomium's super and its deeps, but when I peeked in I saw that they had turned it into an extra brood box! That made me wonder what the deeps looked like, and should I reverse them? When I began to disassemble them I saw they were packed with very angry bees, and there was plenty of brood at the top of the lower deep and bottom of the upper. At this point I was smoking full time to keep the bees at bay, so I chickened out and re-assembled the hive and got out of there.

What shall I do? The hive looks really strong. Brenda suggested adding a queen excluder to the top of the medium, and start with new supers. If we haven't had the acacia flow yet, that's a good idea. If we have, it's time to start feeding for the summer dearth.

I'll post again on Sunday.