Fill 'er up, Joe!

I made a quick trip to the Sutton hives this afternoon after work. It was around 5:30PM, the weather was cool, so I didn't do much manipulation. I needed to refill the sugar syrup feeders on Sutton Hive 2 (the new hive created with a package). Sure enough, they had consumed all of the syrup in the jars there. Earlier today I asked my wife to make up a batch of 1:1 this afternoon, so it was ready for me to grab and go this evening.

I looked in the hive and saw that they had drawn out about 4 frames of wax. I saw some goofy comb on one of the frames, and I think it may cause me some problems (burr comb), but I left it alone this evening.

I also checked Sutton Hive 1, the established hive. I saw that the upper supers (above the queen excluder) were almost empty of brood, with just a few bullet-shaped drone cells yet to hatch. This is great news - it means that the queen was below the queen excluder like I needed her to be.

I saw lots of drones in the upper supers (where they had been born). I have the super offset a little in the stack, to give room for the drones to be able to leave (since they can't fit through the queen excluder). Someone on the BeeSource forum suggested shaking off the bees from above the excluder to below, so I don't have to leave the entrance for the drones. That looks like a lot of work, frame by frame, and would result in lots of angry bees. So I won't bother. I may install a 3/4" shim with an entrance instead of the offset boxes.

I also noticed that some of the frames above the excluder had nectar in the cells - great news! That means I may get some honey from that hive.

I didn't take any pictures today - I wanted to get in and out quickly since it wasn't the nicest weather.