A Look Inside the Hive

I've been into the hives a couple of times now, and forgot my camera until now.

I fed the bees sugar syrup for 2 weeks, then took the feeders away when I noticed that they had a LOT of the syrup stored up in combs in the hive. Around the same time, I added another "super" (essentially another level or story) to the hives to give the queen more space to lay eggs. This update is about 2 weeks from then (so about a month since I introduced them to the hive).

Here's Herbie hive:

And inside it looks pretty good. Not a ton of bees pouring out the top, but still a pretty healthy population

The Queen was in the top frames, laying eggs in the newly drawn comb (she's the one with the big blue dot)

If you look closely, you can see the tiny white eggs in the center of the combs.

These frames in the top are built up with comb for brood, but dont have much food stored on them
The lower frames, which look fantastic, have the standard semicircle of brood, surrounded by a layer of pollen, and stored food (sugar syrup in this case...usually it's honey) in the corners



The hives are doing great so far.

Also, the beans and squash in the garden have really taken off!