First Inspection - July 2014

It's been a month since we installed the nucs in the hives and we did a one-month inspection this week.  

There are a lot of bees.  

But they are not in a hurry to draw out more comb.   Both hives had only 7 frames drawn out and had not even started an 8th.   Weird.    Since they came with 5 frames, I'm unimpressed.

Lily caught a pic of them festooning as we pulled the frames apart.  Bees festoon a lot and it's interesting to see how they hold on.  Blow the pic up for a closer look; it's really cool.

Both queens looked like they were laying well and each hive had a frame or two of honey.  We put a super on each hive to encourage some growth and we're feeding sugar water and honey for the rest of the season.

I hope the queens are busy, busy, busy because I'd like to have a lot of bees in each hive before winter.