Fresh Comb

It’s been three weeks, now, since I added the foundation-less frames to the hive.

Yesterday, I saw another beekeeper in the neighborhood working with his hive at a community garden. His single deep hive had swarmed, and he had caught the swarm and added them to another box. I decided that I should check on mine.

No smoke today. I don’t know why… But I decided to go smokeless for today’s hive check.

I removed last years’ honey supers, and checked the brood chambers. In each deep, I had placed five foundation-less frames. I was very surprised at the rate of drawing fresh comb. 3 in the top chamber were fully drawn, 1 was about 1/4 drawn, and the last outer frame was seemingly untouched as yet. I rotated the full frame which was almost a full frame of capped drone comb, larval brood, to the outside, and moved the outer untouched frame to the center. Again – I’m amazed at the speed as which the ladies draw out comb on their own.

I’ll post pics next time around.