Hi all
I just did my first inspection 8 days after installing a 7-frame NUC (all mediums). Using an 8 frame garden hive and going foundationless, I was told to put 4 frames of brood in the bottom box intermixed with empty frames and 3 in the top box.
This being my first inspection ever, I was nervous and made some mistakes. Smoke went out, I crushed more than I wanted to, and my plan went out the window.
Here is what I did see - The top box was in much better shape with capped brood on 3 frames. The pattern was a bit erratic but at least there was capped brood. The foundationless frames were 3/5 drawn out and seem to be doing well. The bottom box was very light, the foundationless frames were not drawn out and the frames that had brood are cleaned and it appears they are starting to fill with honey.
What I did - took a few to try to find the queen in the top box but could not. I did not look too closely for eggs but there was covered brood. There were a ton of bees in this box so the numbers seem to be stronger than when I put the NUC in. Since the bottom box was not as far along, I assumed the queen was up top so I swapped the boxes to put the queen low.
Short of having a better plan next time and spending more time looking for eggs (I didn't really try this time, should have though) is there something else I should do? Now that I have taken this step, my mind is completely blank!
Also, how do you crush fewer bees? Even when replacing frames, I dropped them on bees – they were not too happy with me and I was only in the hive for 10 minutes.
Thanks all!
Chris in NJ
it was good right up to the box swapping :-)
the reason the bees were all on the top is that bees work down. how the idea that bees like to work up got started i don't know. no harm. they will just go up and work their way down again.
box swapping is something that some people still recommend, but there is not very often a good reason for it.
other than that, sounds like you are off to a good start :-)