Well, I?ve had my bees about a week. Got a 4 frame nuc from a local, inspected registered keeper. The hive itself is sort of a beginners kit - 8 frame deep brooder with a mason jar honey super. Idea is they make comb up in the jars and you just unscrew when full. Also has little hinged viewing window so you can peek in on each deep. That feature is kinda handy but I?ve already got another 8 frame deep as the more I read, the less I think it?s the way to go for me. I can see putting it on as a second honey super for some comb-in-jar type stuff. I started with an in hive feeder with a gallon of syrup and a split pollen patty on top of the excluder to help them get going. Seems to have worked. As of now they are very active, lots of bees and there?s a huge blackberry flow on here. When I took out the feeder they had already started drawing out the blanks beside the original nuc. I left the pollen patties in. Last check on Sunday there?s only the outside 2 frames (1 each side) not drawn. I think that?s pretty good. Wasn?t sure if I?d need to feed more, still not but they seem to be doing good. I plan to do a full inspection this Saturday.
Trying not to get ahead of myself - what if there?s queen cells? Do I feed more? Hope I don?t kill the queen. All that stuff. And always more reading...