Another Check of the Hive

Last week on March 12th, Casey and I checked the hive because the temperature hovered around 55 F for a few hours. The pollen patty was completely eaten so we replaced it. The upper chamber looked great! Full of bees, brood, and honey.

The lower chamber was just about completely empty. No brood, no honey, very few bees. I called Graham and he said that this was perfectly normal for this time of year. He suggested that we rotate the boxes; placing the top one down and the lower on up. We did this.

We are continuing to feed them the 1:1 sugar syrup which they are consuming at the rate of 6 to 8 ounces a day. It is very cold and extremely windy so we have put the reducer back into the opening.

Thorough Hive Check

We were finally able to get into the hive and check both chambers. We located the Queen in the upper chamber and she looked happy and well. The bees, as a whole, were very active. Flying in and out of the hive. The two end frames of the upper chamber still show no signs of activity. Nothing but foundation. The pollen patty is about half-eaten. I expected the patty to have been completely consumed by this point but we have had some bitter cold weather lately.

All of the frames in the lower chamber had drawn comb. We saw drone cells, but no drones. I am feeding them 1:1 sugar water and they're drinking it down.