First Checkin

Due to the freakishly warm weather we've been having lately (in the 70s and 80s), I decided to check in on the bees to see how they were faring. There was a ton of activity in front of all three hives:

I only had enough time to inspect Yellow and Green. Purple over-wintered with 4 boxes, Green had 3 and Yellow had 2 and a feeder. I figured Purple was the lowest priority because they probably had enough space to start taking in nectar for a few more weeks.

When I opened up the Yellow hive, they were definitely running out of space. In this picture the bees are building burr comb through the inner cover of the Yellow hive:

Other than that, Yellow seemed to be doing ok for laying space, so I threw an empty super on top, making Yellow 3 boxes high. Almost every single time I have opened Yellow, I have seen the queen. Here she is again:

Green hive was also running out of space and had a ton of burr comb everywhere. It looked like they had no space to lay eggs, so I threw on an empty super below the top-most super, making Green 4 boxes high. Here is the burr comb in the Green hive:

The Green hive also seemed to have a lot of pests on the bottom board. Hopefully they are doing ok. I did notice some curled up wings in the Yellow hive - that is a sign that they have a high mite load. Here is the bottom board of Green, you can see a hive beetle and many mites (the little red circles) amongst the wax crumbs. 

Wax Moths

I was preparing for a hive inspection, so I went to go check on my drawn frames in the garage - they are covered with wax moths! The webbing you see below is from wax moths, there is even an adult wax mot in the picture:

Wax moths are generally kept in check when they are inside of the hive - the bees will recognize them as a pest and chase them away. When storing frames not on the hive, wax moths can move in quite easily.

I salvaged most of my frames, but a did clear out 3 or 4 that looked like the one above - there is just too much webbing. I put about 20 of the frames in the freezer, putting frames in the freezer kills the wax moth larvae so it won't be a continuing problem.