Last week our bees swarmed and we didn't get the swarm. They took off before we could even try to get to them from a lower branch of our elm tree. Next day we opened the three hives to see what was going on. (See photo of John with smoker opening hive.) The east hive was building queen cells so that was the one that swarmed. The old queen takes off with a ball of workers and the workers left behind make a new queen. (See photo with two queen cells.) We put on more "supers" which are 8" boxes instead of the two 10" boxes that are the bottom hives boxes reserved for the bees to make brood and honey of their own. Hopefully, the bees will have enough room for a while and will make us some honey. The photo with the black frame is a syrup feeder which we removed since the bloom is on. Other photos show the inside of the hive with the frames, a close up of capped brood and then the hives with the new supers all closed up. The hives are getting taller. The honey is light colored and delicious! Some of it is from the Russian Olive trees which are blooming. Photos in another posting.
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