The honeymoon is over...for me and the bees.

The first year of beekeeping was relatively easy...well, the honeymoon is over. This second year has been hard learning. We had our first swarm last week. Unfortunately they were 30'+ up in a tree so I could retrieve them. Today was the first day back in both hives with last week's cold spell.

In the new hive, the girls had filled the feeder cavity FULL of burr comb that was FULL of nectar. It was a mess to clean that out. The rest of the hive looked good. We didn't find the queen but plenty of eggs, larvae, pollen and nectar.

In the old hive, the previously drawn super frames that had brood were absolutely full of nectar/honey in both supers. Unfortunately they've done nothing with the relatively undrawn checkerboarded frames. The brood box was literally overflowing with bees so I focused on the frame with the capped queen cell we'd found last time. It was uncapped so the new queen is out and about. With the overflow of bees and the full honey frames, I added a new super and replaced the wonky super box. That's when I got tagged on the wrist...had to loosen my Whoop strap 3-4 times after since it was cutting off circulation. Ce la vie. I was clearly in there too long.

We'll see if the added super gives them the space they want but I'm nervous about a secondary swarm. Like I said, the honeymoon is over.

4/29/24