Lang watch

Time: 3:00 pm

Weather: 80ish - very little breeze

I had a chance to watch our 3 lang hives for a few minutes today. In the 2 oldest hives (Hive1 and Hive2 - both 3 supers deep) there were bees hanging out all over the landing boards. There were also many drones coming and going.

In the newest lang (Hive3 - 2 supers) there were several chalk brood larva on the landing board. I saw no drones coming and going from this hive.

The boys are out

Time: 4:00 pm

Weather: 80ish - breazy - big clouds blowing around

I watched the hive entrance for just a minute while I was home on a break this afternoon. I had opened up all three entrances (pulled the corks) the other day as the girls were getting congested on their return to the hive. in under a minute I counted 4 different drones leave the hive. I had seen a few drone cells last time I was in there but this is the first I had seen them in action.

I love it when a plan comes together

Time: 12:30 pm

Weather: very slight breeze - mid 70s

I decided I needed to look at the back (north - right side really) of the hive to see what was going on there. They had also done just what I hoped for here. They had skipped the spacer and built their next comb in the center of the following (last) top board. They now have 7 bars of comb. Lots of Brood. I even found some drone brood. I found the queen. Got to watch her laying eggs. It's a blurry picture, but you can see her towards the top. I added another top bar to this end. With the 3 empty bars on the left (south) side, they now have 4 empty bars to build on.

20 Day inspection

Time: 2:00 pm

Weather: sunny - no wind - mid 70s

Did a quick inspection today (mostly just to show the girls off to my sister, Amy). Decided to remove a couple bars to see how they were building their comb. They had done exactly as I had hoped. They had skipped over the half-width bar and built comb directly in the middle of the next bar. They had even started a small comb in the middle of the bar next to that. I didn't pull the bar in the back to see how there were doing there. The second bar had larva, pollen and honey. The third bar was mostly capped brood (very exciting).

I've been reading lots of posts on the biobees.com forum. Many suggested putting 1 inch (or so) strips of foundation into the top bar kerfs for the bees to use as guides for building their comb. Others us popsicle sticks or other strips of wood and coat them with wax. I've cut down a bunch of wooden strips for this purpose but have not had the time to install them.

The red lines represent where the girls had drawn out comb. The green lines represent where I had hoped they would draw out comb (and I was right).