Went thru both hives today to clean them up and see if there is any brood. Hive #1 had empty med. on top (I had started feeding)BUT there was probably 15-20 pounds of honey in the upper deep! Did find young larvae and capped brood. Hive #2 had one frame of honey that I put in last week in the med. super, otherwise no food. Upper deep was 80% full of honey! Lower deep was almost empty. Looked closer in the med. super and found small amount of young larvae. I may have to re-queen this one, but I'll check again next week. I put the med. in the middle, with the deep full of honey on top. Also found some pollen in this one. The girls were very gentle this morning- no stings! I think I will let them finish the syrup they have left in the jars and stop feeding them. And to think when I checked the mediums two weeks ago I thought they had no food left! They were just too dumb to go down to it!! This year I think I will winter them in just two deeps instead of two deeps and a medium.
generally, they move up over the course of the winter. it's more about instinct than intellect ;)
Yes, I figure they started out the winter too high in the boxes, and then couldn't break cluster to get what was there under them. Well, anyway, they made it through okay!
The whole time I was going through the hives, the girls remained calm and I had no problems. BUT.....
a little while later, about 50 feet away from the hives I picked up a piece of debris in the yard and promptly got hit in the throat by a kamikaze bee! I already have an upper resp. infection with scratchy throat and cough, now it's swollen too! :( Like I really needed this!