Finally Starting to Feel Like Spring!

It's a beautiful sunny day and the temperature is probably going to hit 70.  The weather hasn't been great for doing much bee work lately, so today is a good day to check everyone's progress.

The outyard hive is slooooooowly building their population.  They have two pretty good looking frames of brood and I was able to locate the queen.  They have quit taking dry sugar, so I took it off.  They are bringing in pollen and maybe nectar.  They seem to have plenty of food (at least 2 frames).  The extended forecast is showing fairly mild temperatures for the next couple of weeks.  I'm going to give them two weeks and then either feed 1:1 syrup or give them a frame of brood if one of the other hives can spare it.

The backyard hive is building up their population nicely.  The queen has moved up into the top box again and has laid 3-4 frames of brood there.  I didn't dive all the way into the bottom box, but will do a full tear-down inspection in two weeks.  I did see some capped drone cells, so swarm season is upon us.  They are bringing in lots and lots of bright yellow pollen.  I went ahead and gave them a honey super with starter strips.  I'm going to attempt to produce comb that can be cut and put in jars of extracted honey.  I had a couple of people specifically request that last year.

The biggest move today was that the nuc graduated into their own full-sized hive.  Their population wasn't building up as quickly as I had hoped, but they did seem to be a bit honeybound, especially in the top box.  There was 2-3 frames of brood in the bottom box.  Because I already had 8 frames drawn and partially filled, I went ahead and put them in a double deep right off the bat.  I put seven frames in the bottom box, and one frame of brood into the center of the top box to draw them up.   I am, as usual, second-guessing doing this.  I think I should have put a frame of honey in the top rather than brood.  I will peek in on them in a day or two to see how they are doing.