It's been a few weeks since I last inspected the bees. On the previous inspection, I had robbed a single frame of honey. I had a slight concern because it seemed like they were almost out of space. They had a few empty frames plus the outsides of the last frames. At the very least, I was concerned about how large (or small) the brood area was. That said, they seemed to be foraging like crazy.
In an ideal world, I would have put drawn foundation into another box so they could fill it with the fall flow. Sadly, being a first-year beekeeper, I don't have any drawn foundation. They are in really good shape, honey-wise, to go into winter but there is still another month and a half before first frost. At this point, it is really unreasonable to expect that they will draw out another box and fill it before winter sets in. I had considered robbing another frame or two, but they all had uncapped areas in the bottom, middle of the frame and I don't have a hydrometer to test for moisture content. So, I guess 1 frame is all I get this year. Oh well, they will hopefully be better off this winter because of it.
One neat thing to mention... When I robbed the frame of honey last time, I added a foundationless frame. I used a wedge frame and nailed and glued the wedge to the top bar. I was happy and surprised to see that the frame was mostly drawn out and being used for brood raising. It was neat to see a frame of totally fresh, clean comb created entirely from nothing. The only little issue is that it was slightly crooked. I suspect that my intricately leveled hive has settled, making it slightly out of level. Oh well, it will work perfectly fine. I'm planning of using only foundationless frames from now on though, so I will have to recheck for level in the Spring.
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| Almost completely capped frame. Probably OK, but why chance it. |
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| A closer look at the uncapped section of comb |
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| This comb is totally the work of the bees, done in about 2 weeks. |
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| A close-up of the comb. A little more work and it will be done. |
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