My good friends Kannan, and Mac helped me get a closer look inside out hives yesterday. Four weeks ago I put the second deep supers on each hive. The supers were full of bare frames, meaning the bees needed to build the comb before they could use them. Well, after checking out the hives I can say they are doing excellently. Lots of brood and some full frames of honey. There were even empty brood chambers where baby bees had already emerged. This means we probably need to add more space to allow the hive to continue to grow.
The diagram on the left is similar to our hives, (different lid and different number of frames) but it gives you an idea of how the hives are constructed. Its a fairly simple design. Wooden frames are suspended inside a box, and the boxes are stacked up. The bees then build honeycomb on both sides of each frame. I had some handy helpers, so we were able to take clean photos of each frame. I cropped all the photos in a similar way so you can flip through each cross section of the hive. As you get towards the middle you’ll notice that there is less honey and more brood. The queen lays eggs in a somewhat predictable pattern, and experienced beekeepers use that to judge the quality of the hive.
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