Inspection of the Langstroth Hive

Best Bees came out and checked on my Langstroth hive. The beekeeper came into the backyard and we talked a little about what I have seen with the bees. This hive has been very active and collecting pollen since the moment the snow melted. I have started to wonder if they will swarm this year.

Before he opened the hive I showed him the top bar hive. He had never seen one before and was intrigued. We opened the observation window, so that he could see how it looked on the inside. I also showed him what the top bars look like and explained the guide that they have on them.

When he opened the Langstroth hive, the bees seemed calm. He did not use a smoker. He pulled out the feeder first, the bees have not been using it for several weeks now, so he dumped it out and replaced it with new frames. I let him know that the bees had thrown out the sugar patty that was given to them in March. He found a large piece of it on top of the bottom box and took it out.  He checked most of the frames on the top box, the hive has two deeps.

There was quite a bit of capped brood. He was very surprised to see capped honey already. He said that he had not seen that with any of the other hives this year. I told him that these bees have been working very hard since the moment they were able to get out of the hive. I am sure that they found the skunk cabbage the minute it came up.

He told me that the hive looks great and that they will put a third deep on the next time they come out. He looked for queen cells, but said that he doesn’t think there were any there. He saw some drone cells though. He told me that he didn’t need to check the bottom deep because looking at how things were going on the top he could guess how things were. I am very happy to hear that things are going very well with this hive.