Attitude A-plenty

Notes: Sugar water from 10/28 was gone. Added 1 quart 2:1 sugar water. The bees had completely drawn out the empty frame I added on 10/24! It's getting a little crowded during high traffic times of the day--time to remove the entrance reducer.

Unfortunately, I began today's inspection without first taking off my day. Sometimes it takes an external observation to realize how busy I have made my life. Louise is staying with me right now, and I have had very little time to spend with her. I've been getting up at 5:00 am to get to work early to work on an important presentation and get caught up on all of the things that idled while I was on travel. I work until 5:00 pm and then breeze in, get some dinner and begin studying. Yesterday, I had class from 6:00 to 9:00, and Louise went out for drinks with the girls, so I saw her for about an hour the whole day! Today, with my fourth cold in six weeks going strong, my presentation finally complete and presented and my bee duties neglected, I threw in the towel and left work at lunch time.

So that is where my mind was when I opened the hive. Not surprising, the first thing I did was squash a bee, which upset the other bees and made the whole inspection challenging and stressful. The bees crowded around the frame where their buddy had been squashed, and it became difficult to get my fingers and tools where they needed to go to lift out the frame. And then the bees poured into the spaces between the frames so that I couldn't get them re-snugged. The density of the net on my home-made veil and the position of the sun conspired to make seeing rather hard. The inspection took almost 45 minutes, which I know is too long to have the hive open when the sun is getting ready to set. I had several moments where I wanted to just throw the lid on and leave them be. But I knew that that would only lead to a bigger mess on my next inspection. I also wondered if part of the problem was simply too many bees. They have now almost filled the first deep, so maybe it's time to add the second deep. Should I do that so late in the season? Something to research.

I couldn't get my smoker lit either--the decent matches were no where to be found, and I quickly made my way through five tiny matches without getting the thing going. I ended up just blowing air from the smoker to disband the bees when they clumped up. They didn't seem to like it and tried attacking the smoker spout! Not sure who had the most attitude today--me or the bees.

With my complaining and justifying out of the way, let me tell you what a really wonderful inspection it was. I saw the queen! As I lifted out the very last frame, my stick-to-it-ness was rewarded by seeing my gorgeous queen bee strolling across the cells of multi-colored pollen that make up the back side of the very last frame in the hive. And the bees have been incredibly busy. They completely drew out and filled the seventh frame that I added on 10/24. Go bees, go!

Here is the status of each frame starting from the one furthest from the follower board:

1. One side is completely empty. The other is about 1/2 full of capped honey
2. This is the new frame. It was completely drawn out. One side had honey, pollen, larva and eggs. The other side was honey and pollen
3. This one was almost entirely capped brood.
   
4. Brood and capped brood.
   
5. Capped brood w/ some open brood.
6. Capped brood w/ some open brood.
7. Honey and pollen on one side. Almost all pollen on the other side and the queen.
   

I should have added the final frame to the inside of the first frame, but just wanted to get out of there. Perhaps the bees will begin it on there own.