Things are booming up North

4pm, 64 degrees, cloudy

I stopped at Essie's this afternoon to inspect the North hive. I was supposed to bring a friend from work, but the weather was cloudy and threatening rain, and I wanted her first experience around the bees to be positive, so I decided to check them on my own this time and bring her along next time.

The hive is doing great. Two weeks ago, on May 9th, I added the second 8-frame box. Today I had to add the third. The second box was set up as follows:

Frame 1: Undrawn
Frame 2: Half drawn, nectar
Frame 3: Full of nectar
Frame 4: Solid brood, mixture of capped and uncapped
Frame 5: Solid capped brood
Frame 6: Solid capped brood
Frame 7: Solid brood, mostly uncapped
Frame 8: Some brood, mostly nectar

As things looked pretty healthy in this box, I did not check the box below.

The bees were not very excited to see me. It was cloudy and breezy and cooler than it's been lately. At first they were fine - a little bit of smoke in the front and some under the lid, and they were peeking at me from the edges of the frames. About the time I got to Frame 7, they started flying more, bonking my veil and flying at my hands. I took a quick look at Frame 8, added the third box and got out of there.