Wife and I inspected our ‘Verona’ behive today and I think that has to be hands-down the  best inspection we’ve done to date. First real detailed bee work we’ve done this year, and probably a more thorough inspection than we’ve ever done. We swapped the bottom and top hive bodies for this season and took out the medic strip that was in the bottom hive (already took out the top one earlier this week.) What is now the bottom hive body had about 60% filled frames of honey, and the other 40% was mostly filled brood combs. Plus! We found the queen on this one, first time we’ve found our own queens anywhere. The now top hive body had a lot less filled comb, you can tell that was on the bottom for winter and they ate there first. A couple of frames of pollen stores, a frame or two of partial brood and larvae, and the remainder was partially filled honey frames.

All in all they look to be doing great, this was around 2pm in the afternoon, around 70 degrees outside turning to overcast. Had to use minimal smoke and no one ever got upset with us much throughout the whole ordeal. Queen excluder and one super placed on top and they’re back in business!

Posted on April 14, 2012 at 3:25 pm.