We had some warm sunny weather yesterday and we opened the hive up for an inspection. I was relieved to find the hive to be very strong. The top bars were covered end-to-end and every frame at at least this many bees.
This deep frame had the most honey remaining and was near the edge of the box. Those near the center were empty and a few others had less than half this amount. We decided to move this and some of the other frames with honey remaining toward the center, putting the empty ones near the outside. Since we still have some cold weather left, we thought that would allow them to continue eating honey when they are clustered in the center. We also decided to begin feeding with the spring syrup formula with the top feeder.
Anyway, I have some questions about some sights of the inspection that we didn't know how to read. First in the picture below you can see four types of cells:
1- some remain with capped honey (upper left);
2- some are empty and very clean (upper right);
3- some are empty and have some dark residue
4- some are not empty and have something dark and glossy (
what is it? pollen?)
Finally, we saw some frames like the one below. At first it looked like larvae, but closer inspection shows that the stuff inside the cell is not "c-shaped" but seems a solid mass.
What is it? could it be some gelled honey?