Hello!
Yesterday we had our first hive inspection and it went perfectly!
We have 6 frames drawn, 3 frames brood, 3 frames food. With 4 frames remaining to be drawn. Currently, don’t have any sugar syrup hooked up, but by next weekend I’m hoping to have aquired a syrup feeder, and or patties for added proteins.
It seems like our small number of pest I’d seen upon initial pickup have all dispersed, saw 0 SHB, no ants, no roached, just bees! Very happy about that. We’ve put in place a few preventative measure to discourage pests from entering, such as DE around hive, a few beetle traps, direct sunlight, and our hive sits about 1.5 ft off the ground.
For next week I’m really hoping we see progress on the empty frames – we’d really love to see 10 full frames drawn, but if not – will recoat the empty frames with wax and possibly connect a feeder to give them a boost.
Within two weeks I hope to be needing to expand them into a second large box, and start planning a few summer splits to get them sized up before Winter.
Lots to do, will keep posting updates here!
Thanks for reading!
P.S. We found the Queen, do you see her?!