50/50

The population of the hive is getting darker.

More light-striped dark bees than yellowish brown bees can be seen.

First Full Inspection

3rd Inspection (almost four weeks from installation): 8:30 pm, sun setting,

Clear skies, weather still warm from hot temperature day.

We went out to examine the comb we missed last week and to see how many bars had comb. The sugar syrup was almost empty and we replaced it with a new jar of 1:1 and three tiny holes in the lid. The bees took 10 days to go through the last jar - which may have been too long for the same syrup to sit in the hive. The substitute pollen patty was still untouched. I don't know whether it is better to take it out or leave it in - I left it in. The smoker only went out once this time around, despite working with the bees for 30 minutes.

This time around we used a crowbar to shift all the bars back about half an inch, so that I would have some room to set the bars back in without loosing lives. Although I started with bar #5 and moved back to bar #9 and then decided to see the bars from last week too, I went ahead and put the photos here in the order they are in the hive.

Bar #1 (front/back): 

Bars #2-#3 (last week/this week) 

Bar #4 (front/back) 

Bar #5 (last week/this week) 

Bar #6 (front/back) 

Bar #7 (front/back) 

Bar #8 (front/back) 

Bar #9 (just beginning) 

We could see that many of the capped brood comb had been open, but the drone comb was still capped. We could also see more darker bees than before. As I closed up the hive I needed my handyman husband to help shove the comb tightly together. He stepped in to help, again, unprotected, and received his second and third stings. This time he accidentally squeezed the venom into his skin while trying to remove the stinger and ended up causing himself quite a bit of pain, enough that he doesn't want it to happen again.

We still have yet to find that elusive queen. We'll spend some time examining our photos, but it's not to critical as it appears she is doing a good job.

On Second Thought

We were worried last night after reviewing our photos from the inspection. We tried so hard to figure out what is next in our line of events, but last night threw us a curve ball. We saw what we thought was too much scattered capped drone comb and most of the combs were much darker than the beautiful new combs we pulled out a week before. Then, this morning when we pooled our knowledge together to try and decode our bees' comb and a couple of ideas came to our minds...

Capped brood comb is bullet shaped. Flat capped comb is not always honey. Dark capped comb is likely brood and to check, we can just open one up.... Why didn't we think about this while we were in the hive??

Bar #5 is a good example that shows two separate combs were made on either end of the bar and later joined once they filled out (as we have seen from the webcam). We can see "C" shaped larva and it appears in a good pattern: just around the capped brood comb. Which would indicate that we still have a queen. Looking at the photos a little closer and comparing them with last week's, maybe all those empty cells are not necessarily scattered brood cells, but may actually be opened brood cells from new workers.

We didn't see any queen cells from the four bars we check yesterday (and the fifth bar we checked last week). So our workers must have some guidance to their design, right? We still haven't located the queen, but we still have plenty of bees. We are not in 'panic' mode so much as we were last night. Our common-sense has taken over and we can probably wait until Saturday for a fuller inspection.

Second Inspection

(Almost three weeks from installation)

We were gone all day long and did not return until 5:30 pm. Unfortunately, the storm clouds had moved in and it was just beginning to sprinkle. But I needed to get into the hive today - tomorrow is our day of rest - I did not want to wait until Monday. By the time the rain had paused it was 6:30 pm and 70 degrees.

I opened the hive and found the syrup only half empty. I pulled it out to scrape up the bottom of the hive. Most of the sugar syrup mess I found just three days ago had dried out once the entrance was opened all the way. I took a picture from the inside of the back of the hive before I began my inspection of the bars. It looks great to us beginners. 

Front of bar #2 (below) 

Back of bar #2 (below) 

Front of bar #3 (below)

Front of bar #5 (below)

Bar #5 is where I pulled the queen cage out from the front of the comb. It looks pretty straight in this photo. There are a few miss shaped cells in the area, but no cross combing.

Looking over the comb we concluded that we were seeing too much capped drone. I looked for the queen on the first bars, but then forgot on the others. Some of the comb (like #5) look like a good pattern, but I had this awful feeling that we have laying workers. My handsome husband was so brave this time around: he got up close to take pictures and videos, and smoked the bees as needed while I worked them; and surprisingly neither of us got stung. When comparing this last comb to the inside photo, it appears the bees have built comb through to bar #8.