A Second Story Addition

The bees have built up their numbers enough now that they needed more space, so we decided to add a second deep (wooden box with frames) for the bees to live and work in. To add to the hive body we took two of the outer frames that were partially drawn out with comb and added them to the middle of the new deep to encourage the bees to hang out in there. We put brand new frames in the bottom deep to replace the ones we took out. If we did not give the bees more space, they would be tempted to swarm (half the bees take off with the queen to find a new place to live). 

Two old frames, eight new frames for the second deep.

This frame looks great with capped brood in the middle and some honey and pollen at the tops and sides.

On another note, the bees have been building comb in the feeders, especially Matt's. We had to get the bees and wax out and clean the feeders, but it turned into quite an operation. In the picture below you can see the white comb attached to the mesh screen.

Matt scraped out as much off the bottom as he could. It was a bummer, but we can't let them build comb up there because it makes taking care of the hive too difficult and they won't be able to access the sugar syrup.

Matt unscrewed the screen and scraped wax off the top. 

 We both ended up taking our feeders completely apart to get the bees out of the nooks and crannies. We washed them, put them back together and refilled them. Matt is trying his feeder with the inner cover under the feeder to discourage them from building comb. We will see if the bees can figure it all out.

After checking them today, they seemed to be feeding pretty well. We had to spill some of the sugar syrup on purpose so Matt's bees would know where it was now that the inner cover is on. 

These hives look too legit to quit! 

Lupine