Quite the last few days at the hive...
It's been an interesting few days here in the apiary to say the least. I opened it up midday Sunday, hot an humid as it was, but I needed to get in to make sure the bees finished spreading the mite treatment around. Fortunately, the tray was empty, I guess they did. That was the good news. Then we got around to the main inspection. WOW...the top box which was supposed to be for the queen to make more bees was what they call "honeybound". That's when all the frames/cells are filled with honey or nectar. That means, at least in that box, that the queen had nowhere to lay eggs. This can be a bad thing, because if she feels like she doesn't have enough space she'll create a swarm and go somewhere else with about half my bees. If she leaves and there's no eggs or 1-3 day old larva left in the original hive, then the remaining bees can't create a new queen and unless you find the swarm or buy a new queen (yep, you can buy queen bees on the inter...
