Hi- Guess my pictures didn't load in order so ignore picture numbers below...
I just got my first bees last weekend. I opened them up yesterday to check things out. They were so calm my kids watched from just a little ways away. I know that won't be the case as they grow in size but it was fun for the whole family this time. Except my husband who was inside the house shaking his head at all us crazies.
First picture: Drone cells?? I saw several drones while looking around at the bees.
Second pic: Queen! Got to watch her for awhile. So excited that I found her.
Third/Fourth pic: I had a spacer on top of brood box (for pollen patty), then queen excluder (someone at bee school suggested putting in on now so bees get used to it), then top feeder. Bees build up comb from top of frames through excluder to bottom of feeder. I scrapped it all off (sad because there were eggs laid in the comb I believe (4th pic). Anything I can do to help this? Probably just had too much space there. So far I removed both the spacer and the excluder. Should I also move some frames around like putting a new one in between their old ones? There was some comb building going on in the new outer frames, but not a lot. Or give them another box? I have 8 frame boxes.
Also, are the scraped off comb chunks good for anything? Can the bees "recycle" it? Could I put it in bait boxes?
One more...had some mold starting on the bottom of my inner cover. My husband is almost finished building me a vivaldi board. I assume that will help. I also didn't have the screened bottom board insert off. So I took that off too. The vivaldi board is used year round for ventilation right? Also, when should the screened bottom board be closed up? Just in the extreme cold months?
Thank you! So fun to see in person the stuff I've been reading about all winter. And I knew the bees were done with me being there when the hum changed and they started staring up at me from between the frames. :) Last pic.
Thanks so much for all your help!