Adding A New Brood Box to The Bee Hives.

A lot has happened with our bee hives in the past couple of weeks.  If you remember we started with two packages of bees that we ordered and received back in April.  Of those two packages only one has survived.  When we ordered them they told us it would be best to start with two because more than likely one would not survive.  Well that has been the case.  We noticed  a few weeks ago something was wrong with one of the colonies.   I think the queen died or maybe they did not accept her from the very beginning.  By the time we noticed it was to late to help them. The other colony is growing and thriving in an amazing way.  This past week we discovered they had drawn out the comb on almost all of the frames in the brood box, so we did some studying to find out when we needed to add a new brood box on top.  What we found out was that it was time to do that now.  Once your bees fill out all but two frames it's time to add a new box.  If you over crowd your bees they will find a new home.  If the bees can see the roof of their home they are ready to move.

I also shared with you a few weeks ago about catching a swarm of bees.  Well that colony is doing great!  It's amazing how fast they are working and filling up the box with brood.  When we caught the swarm we were not prepared for the bees, we had a box to put them in but we had no bottom board or top cover.  Larry very quickly made some that day just for a temporary fix and we ordered a top and bottom.  It's now time to add a box on top to give them plenty of room to expand and we also need to replace the bottom board and top cover at the same time.  The only problem is...how do you take their bottom board away and replace it?  I didn't even get a picture when Larry popped off the bottom board because it was a bit frighting and chaotic .  He pried it apart, which took much effort since they had glued every crack and crevice with propolis or bee cocking. As soon as he popped that apart the bees boiled out the bottom of the box, they really did not like that at all.  So we very quickly sat the box onto the new bottom board, replaced the top cover and gave them their space to calm down.  No picture needed was my thought at the time.

It took them a good two days to forget what we had done and they didn't want us to even look at them from afar during that time.  Larry got stung a couple of times just for trying to take a peek. They have finally forgotten or forgiven us for ripping the floor out of their house.
Now we'll need to keep an eye on them to see how quickly they fill this box, the next box to add on will be a honey super.  Bring on the honey!!
Have a great weekend!
Angie