Inspection of new hive

[sc-bee]

Foundationless-
Our flows in SC are short yours may be longer in your part of NC. They will draw it here but the foundation, and I also like wax, gives them a heard start and cuts down on the wonkie comb and drone comb like you have. But yes it it natural. A bit of advice. If you are not doing so already run some support wires across your foundation-less frames. Nothing like a heavy frame of brood falling out of the frame to the ground on a hot Southern day Trust me you won't regret it, the wire that is

[Seeb]

Drones are a big draw on the hive's resources, and they know it.  I've seen where the drone cells are spotty, sometimes because the workers pulled some drone brood and left them outside the hive.  Their reasons may be: cold snap in spring temps (chilled brood); cessation in a flow; and what in my perception was workers culling drones that had mites.

We've been having weather in the 70's and 80's where I am, but for the past few nights it's been down in the mid 30's so yes we've had a cold snap or two. Thank you for sending the link on nest manipulation, I will check it out in a bit. 

I'm very pleased with how straight the bees are building their comb. My hive is level, but it also may have something to do with the fact that I use medium, not deep brood boxes. And yes, FG - I think life is good for them here. I think I've been pretty through in meeting their needs.

If you are not doing so already run some support wires across your foundation-less frames. Nothing like a heavy frame of brood falling out of the frame to the ground on a hot Southern day

SC - I thought I would wire a box of frames for extracting.

Oh, and good news - I live in the old home house of a farm,  and after 40 + years of the surrounding farm sitting, the granddaughter has come in this spring and making it ready to farm again. This weekend a big farmer in our area came in and plowed about 20 acres of it. I understand he will plant pumpkins and/or sweet potatoes.

[sc-bee]

SC - I thought I would wire a box of frames for extracting.

Run cross wires on them all for handling--- it makes inspecting brood frames much simpler.

[Seeb]

thanks SC - I've got to order some hive parts this week, so I'll get some wire too. Better safe than sorry.

So, I went in the hive and all is looking good

I swapped out frames so that every other frame has wax foundation

I didn't go in the bottom box, but I could see that they are already pulling comb on one of the 3 frames I added yesterday. That made me happy.

I'll keep an eye on them, but unless I see a problem, I'll stay out for another 7 days.  YAY!

[Seeb]

There's a helpful thread here about brood nest "manipulation" and the gist of it is: Don't break up the brood nest in an effort to make the bees expand faster.   https://beemaster.com/forum/index.php?topic=53468.0

Thanks so much for the link FG, I really enjoyed the read, and printed so I can read it enough times to understand.

[Seeb]

Day 30 followup - 7 days later

I think the most important thing I found in today's inspection, was there were no queen cells, so I think I should wait another 2 weeks before inspecting again.
Not much progress in the hive in the past 7 days
Of the 3 frames I added in place of the frame feeder, one [blank one] was being drawn. The bee's started building that frame to far out to the side on one end, so I cut that  part that was sticking out, out - there was no brood in this cutout, an just a little honey.
Still no activity in the top brood box - and that's not concerning to me at this point, but I did rubber band the comb I cut out to one of the frames in this box.  It was not more than 3" wide and the height of the frame.
Bees are very active, my neighbor called me yesterday to tell me the bees are all over his crimson clover - he was tickled. I expect this is why they had only taken about a quart of the syrup I was feeding them.
Feeling pretty good all in all