On June 18, Kristien and I installed a queen excluder and moved the deep frames of brood above the excluder so that the comb will be cleared by mid july and I can return it to it’s rightful owner. (Whoever that may be! Thanks!)
This week I was checking on the native nuc from Allen and the swarm from Mel and found that they both were ready for a third brood box. (The brood pattern on from that swarm queen, Mel, is fantastic! Not a single cell missed!) I got to thinking, today, maybe I should check on the Q1 hive to see how things are going.
Well, it didn’t need a new box yet. I sort of forgot that in the process of moving the deep brood up, we provided them with 6 frames of foundation to build out. They are busy with that project. And this is what I found:
They seem to have a distinct dislike for wire in the foundation. I think this colony is just naturally a foundationless group! What do you think?
You can see in the picture below that there are bees working to chew out some of the other wires as well!
I think when I do add the next box, I’m going to checkerboard it with foundationless frames.
Oh, this is weird!
Allen says they do this when there’s no nectar. So I’m feeding.
So they took the gallon I put in yesterday and the feeder was dry this afternoon. So I decided to feed them some more.
Minutes later I realized that more than likely the bees are storing this syrup in the brood comb I’m trying to clear out. So I won’t feed them again until after July 9. Hopefully they’ll eat what they have stored by then.