Thought I'd update folks about the bees!
They're doing fantastically. Colleen and I opened the upper super (the one we just added a
couple of weeks ago) to assess their status and they seem to be doing quite well. Several of the frames have good comb and brood (the eggs) throughout and the overall patterning is good. Colleen felt there maybe should have been a bit more capped comb but I thought it was good so we had a small disagreement there, but we both agreed we should be looking forward to possibly adding another super in a month or so.
If we do decide to add a third super, we'll insert what's called a
Queen Excluder between the two existing supers and anything above that. A Queen Excluder simply prevents the queen from laying any eggs into the comb "above" the Excluder, so the bees will only fill any comb they make with pure honey. The plan for this year is purely to let the bees make as much honey as they
possibly can--their
one and only job is (basically) to live thru the winter this time around. So even if we add a third super we don't plan to tap any of it....we're giving them room to make as much honey as they can. On the off chance that we have a surplus next year,
then we'll think about harvesting some.
But that's down the road. For now they're doing extremely well, busily building out comb and making honey and doing what bees do best. We're happy.
Steven in Colorado
My Construction Website
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