Today's check

Both hives are doing well. I wanted to pull honey today, but it was too cool for the fume board. I took one medium super from the north hive and brushed bees, but put in an escape to get rid of the bees in the two supers on the south hive. That will make four mediums of honey this year from the two hives.

Both looked good, lots of bees. The north hive, which I requeened on the 11th of September, has capped brood and larvae, so we're doing well. I was disappointed not to see the queen and her yellow mark, but I was more interested in evidence of her than in continuing to pull the hive apart. Looking through the brood nest, I also did not see any bees with phoretic mites. Given how well they were doing, and how much honey they had, I added a medium super of mixed foundation and drawn comb for them. They looked like they could use a bit of room, and like the other hive, they have packed away a hive full of honey. So a bit more room seemed like a good idea.

The north hive is all mediums, for brood and honey, while the south hive has deeps for brood and mediums for honey. I like using the mediums in some respects--easier to life, for sure. But I also find it more time consuming to go through three "layers" of brood nest instead of two. I may move them to full deeps in the spring. In any case, it needs to be standardized, so I can swap frames and make nucs.

More later...