Growing Apiary

Just did a quick check in on my new baby hive that I started on 2/14, they are doing amazing! I definitely moved the queen from the Yellow hive into this new hive, there are eggs and young larvae everywhere. It takes about a month or a month and a half to start seeing activity like that when a hive has raised a new queen. Here is a great picture of some nurse bees in the baby hive feeding young larvae (and a lot of bee bread and nectar in the bottom right):

The new hive was so packed with eggs and larvae that I added another medium hive body with all just foundation in there (no drawn comb). Those bees shouldn't have a problem filling that box in the next few weeks.

This also means I shouldn't open the Yellow hive until at least 3/14 because they are the ones raising the new queen.

In addition to checking out the new baby hive (which I will probably paint pink eventually, since I made it on Valentine's day) I took a look at Green. This is the first time I've checked out Green this year. When I opened the hive - it was a freakin' disaster. I had thrown some supers on about a month earlier (without checking the state of the hive) and when I opened the hive today, there was brood in the super! The top super was the 6th box on the hive, typically you should only see brood in boxes 2 and 3, maybe 1 and 4. Definitely not box 6.

When I started going deeper in the hive - box 5 was all capped honey, so was box 4. Box 2 and 3 were about 50% honey and 50% brood. Box 1 was mostly empty, but also a lot of pollen. When the brood laying space is that full of honey, it is referred to as "honey bound". It is the same concept as "root bound" for a plant. There is no space for the queen to lay eggs because the brood nest is filled with honey. This can seriously stunt the size of the hive if not addressed quickly.

I reorganized the hive by putting all of the brood in boxes 2 and 3, then giving them some extra empty frames in those boxes as well. I also put a 7th box on the hive (all just empty frames with just foundation) so that they would have a place for more nectar.

I managed to find enough eggs and capped brood to create ANOTHER little hive out of the Green hive. Here is what the apiary looks like now: