Thursday, May 27, 2010

One week with the second deep

It's Thursday the 27th of May, and it's been a week since I've added the second deep. I've been itching to see how they are doing - have they expanded upward?

Well the outer most frames each have more than a few bees on them, and as I get closer to the center, as you can see, there comb is being built out nicely. They all seem really focused. almost as if I am not there (which is nice).
As I removed the top deep to take a better look at the 1st level deep, the bees were not as happy with me. Several were pinging off my veil, and I was glad I had it on. The fact that I had to separate several frames that had burr comb built on it, probably was the key factor - they seemed fine until I disturbed the comb. My smoker while initally lit and working fine had begun to peter out on me - turns out I burned all the pinecone and needles in the smoker :( ... so I took a deep breath and just persevered. I escaped again without being stung. It's interesting that the bottom deep still has little comb built on frames 1 and 2 ... perhaps the orientation of the entrance facing more S, SW has to do with it? Many frames were heavy to lift, and seemed packed with capped honey. I once again found the queen, and seeing lots of eggs and larvae stages, I felt secure that the hive seemed in order. I put the second deep back on top, along with the top frame feeder, freshly topped off with 1:1 sugar syrup.


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