We checked on some of our hives today a week after putting them into new hives. They were doing great. In their productive enthusiasm they had built comb in a place where it would cause spacing problems so we had to take it out.
Both hives had excess comb we had to remove. One was larger than the other:
We took the comb out and placed it in front of the hive so the bees would easily crawl back into the hive (below).
Once they had all left the extra comb we gave the comb to our daughter to chew on! Bees wax with syrup is like chewing gum!
We checked out the bees on the comb and they were already well on their way to packing their newly made comb with flower pollen and nectar (see the brown combs below). How the hell do they make the honey comb so perfect?? As a green builder this fascinates me. The perfection of those combs mesmerize me. It makes our building look so crude. And to think they build an environment the equivalent size of one city block in a week! With their own spit! It puts us to shame.
The bees looked nice and healthy:
And check out the queen! The apiary that raised her put a blue dot on her back to easily recognize her. She was so busy moving around from comb to comb laying eggs! She was always surrounded by helper bees who gave her space and cared for her:
Once we had checked all was good we filled the hive up with lots of sugar water to help them get up and running:
