pre-Memorial Day booty

Went in to check the hives on Thursday before leaving for the long Memorial Day weekend. They are doing well!

Hive #2 - Top box that I put on a couple of weeks ago was beginning to get filled with nectar. Down in the next box, it looked very healthy, I took about three frames of honey, put in some extracted comb for them to fill up again.

Hive #3 - I had put old brood comb on top of hives #3 and #4 (because I did not have anything else). In both cases they had not done much with it. There was some nectar in it, but not much. I went ahead and removed both boxes. I had put together two new boxes of foundation during the week, so I used this along with the empty comb from last weeks extractions to put back on both of these hives. In the case of hive #3, they had brood put all the way up to box #4! SO I did not take any honey from these guys.

Hive #4 - again, this hive is going to be a big producer! After removing the brood comb box (a lesson learned), the next box down was packed with honey. I started taking out frames and ended up taking out the whole box full of honey. All of the boxes are now on nine frames which often makes them very fat and heavy. I took two more frames from the box below, for a total of 11 frames from this one hive.

14 frames overall - I do try to take an even number of frames so I can balance the extractor.

Speaking of extraction, as I mentioned above I did have empty honey comb as I extracted for the first time this year. I took out ten frames of the previous couple of weeks and got about 2 and half gallons of honey from these frames - sweet as ever!

Doing well!

Checked all of the hives - and they all looked really good. All of the hives had pretty full top boxes, so I need to get some new boxes together! I did pull three frames of honey from Hive #4 and inserted three empty frames of foundation. So far - looks like a good year ahead.

First Honey of the year!

I went in to check on the hives and came back with some honey.

Hive #2 - There was some activity in the top box, but not much. I checked below, lots of brood, some drone comb, everything looked pretty good. I left it alone. Still in four boxes.

Have #3 - I had put a new foundation box on top last time, it was without action at all. The next box down was hoping with activity - some brood, but mostly honey frames. I pulled two of the honey frames up to the top box to hopefully get them thinking about using it. Also, in four boxes.

Hive #4 - the mother load! This box was already up to five boxes and was already getting full in the top box. I pulled a couple of frames that were already capped. I then went down to the next box and found several capped honey frames also. All together 5 very full frames of honey!