It was a beautiful spring day and my friend and new beekeeper, Jennifer joined my daughter and I for a trip to the farm on Sunday April 5th in the afternoon after Quaker meeting.
We started by splitting my 2nd hive which had 2 hive bodies and 2 supers. Not knowing which one of the hive bodies had the queen and not wanting to search 20 full brood frames of bees, we just split the hive, adding one of the hive bodies, a queen excluder and one of the supers to a bottom board set on cinder blocks about 20 feet from the existing hive and topped it with a hive cover. Both hives bodies were overflowing with bees looked very healthy.
Next we turned our attention to the 1st hive. This was Jennifer's first time with bees since childhood ... she had her new bee suit and was ready with hive tool and smoker. We started by removing supers, 3 regular and 1 Ross Round until reaching the 1 hive body. It was again overflowing with bee, which was good because we plan to return in 2 weeks when her mail-ordered queen arrives and we split this hive. We inspected about half of the brood frames looking for mites and hive beetles.
When re-assembling the hive, I place a super that was quite full near the top with the bee excluder in between it and the rest of the hive. I hope to return in 2 days to remove this super and extract a bit of honey.
Overall it was a successful inspection and all is well my apiary.
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