C-

Well the girls did not do well on their test. Remember we split the brood frame with hopes that they would move the brood to the two new center frames. Well, they had other ideas. Unfortunately, it looks like they gave up on one of the brood frames and left the brood to die. My mentor said the brood were "chilled" meaning that they got too cold during the recent cold snap. This happens when it just plain gets too cold, or (probably in this case) when there were not enough bees to cover two separated brood frames and so the bees decided to just stick with one. Obviously, this is bad in the short run as we have lost some baby bees. :(

Also of concern is that the queen is still not laying in the new comb. She still appears to be active in the one remaining brood frame(yeah) but in none of the new ones. If she doesn't figure this out, we may be stuck with only one frame of brood over the winter, which would probably not be enough to maintain the hive.

The good news is that the bees are still pulling new comb pretty well and filling it with honey and pollen for the winter. Below is a picture of the new comb with some honey and pollen packed away.


In case anyone cannot picture the mason jar feeders - here is what they look like. Just fill-um with sugar water and turn them upside down over the inner cover hole.