Organic beekeeping June 2012 more hive 2
Channel: greenbean2510
Date: 2012-06-29

Here we are at hive 2 checking the progress of the bees and the honeycomb 
they have produced.  This hive was started with a local nuc, 5 frames of 
established comb with bees, but these frames have foundation as that is
how we got them.  They will be switched out to foundationless so the bees
are doing what God intended them to do as far as making honeycomb 
according to a natural design and not a human design/size.  We have 
noticed that the bees draw the  honeycomb very fast on a frame without
a foundation... the natural way is faster!! Go figure!

You can see some honey and pollen in the cells.  The bumpy cells are 
due to those cells containing different size bees...no, they are not all the
same!  The workers are larger than the females, and when the hive is
foundationless, the bees make the cell sizes according to what they 
need, but overall, the natural cells are smaller than cells that are on
foundation.

There are not very many frames of drawn honeycomb in the first hive
body, so we are going to wait about two weeks or so before considering
putting on another hive body.

Yes, at 7:05 is did mess up north and south again, so the stronger building is 
happening on the south side.  Now, notice the frame at 9:35, see how full of
comb that is?  Compare that to the frame we pulled out earlier that has 
foundation, the bees don't like to draw on that.  So what I probably should have
done, was to move one or two totally empty frames on the north side to the south
side of the hive body.  I might even be able to get rid of that frame with
foundation and supply a spare frame...SO much to learn!
There is honey in the hive, but the bees will use that for food in the
Winter.