could be better. could be a lot better
Liam and I finally went into the hives tonight. I knew things weren’t good so I’ve been avoiding this. As we approached I surveyed what was there. We had two brood boxes topped with three honey supers. I went into the top one and saw a few bees but that’s about it. There wasn’t any honey or even comb drawn out. All the bees that I saw there looked suspiciously like drones though…
Middle honey super had honey. excellent.
Lower honey super had some honey but the frames were far from full. I figure they were just lacking what they ate over the winter.
I went to see what was in the upper brood box with a lot of trepidation. When I cracked it open there were a ton of bees and they were pissed, but they still didn’t look right to me. I pulled three frames and it looked like they were trying to lay, but like they didn’t know what to do. the larvae weren’t well formed and some dried up. The brood that was capped were drones.
Lower brood box? empty. Just empty comb and bunches of dead bees laying on the screen.
There were a ton of bees, and the majority looked like drones to me. Liam disagreed. I think we just need to get a queen in there and they’ll be ok. We’ll see.
Also, there was that tobacco look on top of the frames of the upper brood box. I need to look in my notes and see what that means.
