Expansion

Wow! Thistle went nuts over the last 2 weeks and built comb everywhere! Their completely empty hive body (spare 9 wax sheets and 1 frame of drawn comb) was 70% drawn (meaning they had built comb on 7 of 10 frames) and was filled with honey, pollen, and brood. Additionally, Thistle build comb all the way up into their feeder, last year's bees NEVER did that, so I guess they were just looking for more space. Here is what the bottom of the feeder looked like, where all those bees and comb is SHOULD be completely empty:

 And as expected, Thistle built a bunch of burr comb where the queen cage had been (the queen cage causes a larger than usual gap so that the bees can build unusual comb). Here is what they did on this one of the middle frames:

I cleared out all of the burr comb because it was just a mess, here is all of the wax that I collected (in a gallon baggie). I think I'll try to melt it into some candles:

Unfortunately in taking the burr comb away, there were a few casualties. I broke open a few cells that had larve in them (as you can see on top of some of the middle frames). Fortunately most of the burr comb was pretty new, so it wasn't filled with very much, only a few larve and a bit of pollen and honey:

 Mint on the other hand was VERY good, but probably only because they were slower than Thistle and didn't outgrow the space I gave them. They had drawn about 60% of their hive body and were clustered around the one frame of drawn comb that Vicky gave me:

Mint didn't really make any burr comb, overall it was a much easier inspection. I didn't spend too much time peaking around Thistle because there was so much clean up to do, but for Mint, I got a chance to inspect the frames and I did see some eggs (meaning the queen is alive and well, or at least was in the last few days). Both the feeders were completely out of syrup when I checked on them, and Mint had a smaller feeder so they must have been out of food for longer than Thistle was - which probably explains why they were much less advanced than Thistle. I ended up giving Thistle another hive body to grow into, but left Mint with just their first one:

One new thing that I tried this year was actually buying some proper smoker fuel. Last year I tried burning misc things that I found in the back yard: twigs, leaves, paper bags. It was a huge pain in the butt to keep my smoker lit, I usually ended up relighting it 5 or 6 times throughout the inspection of one hive. I bought some quick start pellets, wood pellets, and cotton fluff to see if I would have better luck - this time I went with a starter pellet and cotton fluff. It made a world of difference! I only relit my smoker once throughout the inspection of 2 hives. I'll test out the wood pellets too next time, they are supposed to have a longer burn time: