Adding room in the brood box so queen can lay eggs in them

I noticed the other day that my brood chamber had a few frames with uncapped honey and pollen on them...but no eggs or larvae.  So today, I swapped them for a few frames with comb so that the queen has a place to lay eggs. I wanted to do this before they ramp up production again with the goldenrod in a week or two. These were the only deep frames I had with comb on them...at least that's what I thought until I saw I had a few in the freezer from last year.  I guess I should extract what's in there and put them back into production.

I may need the frames from the freezer soon since the two frames I added will need some amount of cleanup. I've heard that it's faster for them to make new comb than to clean up old comb.  Not sure if that's true or not but I do have many frames with  no comb at all.  I thought I'd start off with them next spring to give them plenty of time to build.

Thanks to the "fat bee man" on youtube for the advice.  He's a great resource to supplement the local folks who also provide so much good information and learning.

Hive inspection today - 7/16/16

I went into the hive today to see how things are going.  I needed to look in the brood box since I had seen  some comb when looking through the bottom opening and figured there had to be a lot of misplaced comb down there.  And I didn't get to that box the last time I inspected so it needed to be looked at.

It really wasn't too bad but I took off the comb and checked the frames.  I could see some uncapped honey on a few frames, but also saw just the right mix of capped honey, brood and pollen.  And there sure are enough bees!  I didn't see the queen but saw eggs in cells so I know she's in there somewhere if I didn't kill her in this inspection.  I did see a few queen cells which I left alone.  They were actually building a queen cell on the bottom board too but I removed that one and left the other two I had seen on frames.

I upset the bees today because I got into each box. As I went out just now to take the photo below, I had bees surrounding me and they aren't happy.  I'll leave them alone now for a few weeks.

the leaning hive... I put extra cement block to steady it but it won't get fixed until next time I take the entire hive apart like today. I didn't realize was leaning until it was all put back together.

Here's what I did today:

• Removed misplaced comb which I'll use for candles later in the year
• Checkerboarded the two supers.  The bottom super was almost full so since we have a few more months where they should be making honey, I thought I'd give this technique a try.
• Inspected for queen and brood
• Checked for honey stores in second box (these are filling up nicely!)
• Opened another vent (hole in box) to give them more air circulation. This morning, bees were bearding outside the hive which is caused by poor ventilation.
• Added more sugar syrup to top hive feeder.

Hive update - 7/11/16

I've been in the hive a few times since my June 18th posting.

• The one super left on the hive had a few frames still to build out with comb but the rest were being filled with nectar and honey.  So I added a second super.
• What I need to do this week is checkerboard the second super and the first, to encourage the bees to build up
• I checked half the frames in the top deep and they mostly were building a lot of white comb at the top of the frames, which I cleared out.
• The box is getting very heavy and there was good looking capped honey in there.
• I didn't get to the bottom deep which is what I need to do next.  I will get down there this week when I checkerboard the supers.
• I'm curious about a queen and if there are more eggs now than on June 18th.  I think that by now there should be a new queen.
• The bees do act like there is a queen. There seems to be enough bees but I have definitely seen a reduction of bees coming in with full side pockets.  In the spring, there is a constant number of bees bringing in pollen in various colors. Right now, I don't see them come in with much at all.  That should change as new flowers begin to emerge including the goldenrod that will start blooming soon.
• I am still feeding the bees and will continue so that they can build up lots of comb that I can hopefully reuse next year and save a lot of time.

I need to begin thinking of winterizing the hive and get some hay into the bee yard for winter insulation...although I hate to think of winter at all during the summer.

I can't wait until I can checkerboard the top deep..but I think that will be a project for next spring when I am hoping I can expand the hive.  And then that new deep will become hive #2...if all goes well.