So I decided to open my hive for the first time yesterday. Here goes nothing.
Taking off the inner cover.
The bees are all hanging out in the middle two frames.
Checking for brood and looking for the queen.
The bees had build comb on top of comb. (After a panicked phone call to my brother I found out this is called bridging and is common and normal.) When I was looking at the frame, this extra chunk of comb crashed to the ground at my feet covered with thousands of bees. I was a bit freaked out.
I picked up the chunks of comb and placed them on top of the hive to allow the bees to wander back into the frames. Of course they didn't and I had to brush them all off the comb before I removed it.
I never did see the queen and couldn't see any brood either. I put everything back together and brought the excess comb into the house. A few hours later, I DID notice some eggs in a few cells of comb. So I DO have a queen and she IS laying. All is well in the hive!
Kind of cool, isn't it?
Kind of cool, isn't it?
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