Solo Hive Check: End of Week Three

first off an apology to my bee girls: I might have used a bit too much smoke, since the smoker made so much smoke.  it was pine straw and dried lavender. The bees did seem to be in smoke nervous mode for a while, but they calmed down once I finished up.

I was a bit nervous myself, this being the first solo check up.  No stings, though!  

First thing I noticed upon removing the roof was that the small family of ants that had been enjoying free access to the sugar syrup was now a full-fledged colony in the making, with a pile of ant eggs.  yuk.  again-I texted Rick for advice.  Bees don't mind ants or ant eggs AT ALL apparently.  Because I do mind them, I got rid of them.  They will probably be back, knowing how ants are so devoted to their task (much like bees).

Further down, there was new drawn comb and a little bit of honey even in the recently added level two super, not much honey, but some!  and the level one super was HEAVY with honey, open nectar? and capped brood....lots of bees and bee activity there. they definitely needed the expansion area to that level two super.

All in all, I shook off the ant nest and eggs in the level three area, checked the top two supers, replaced the empty syrup jar in level three, and then called it a day, not wanting to

push my luck with a check of the deep.

Another thing I noticed was that the majority of new honeycomb and brood production was sort of off center, to the side of the frame a bit. there was also some extra comb (burr comb) on the bottom of a couple of the level two frames, attached to the level one frames which made it a little harder to separate the boxes.  I did scrape that comb off off and saved it. Afterwards, Bobby (Mr. B is my man and photographer here) and I tasted it. It was our first honey taste and it was awesome!