Up to 3 Boxes Each at the Lair

Two days ago, I added a box of foundation to each hive at the lair bringing them up to 3 each.  All three hives were more than 50% finished drawing out and using their second box (with the first box almost completely full of brood and a couple frames of honey on the outside) and while the general rule is to add a box of foundation when they're 70% done with the previous one, I don't get out there often enough to be really certain that I'd catch them before they got overcrowded so I added a third box a bit early.

I looked closely at many of the frames with Jen (a Lair native) and I'd guess there was 10 frames of eggs and brood in each hive -- they're really making new bees fast!  They'll have to pick up honey production to hit more than 4 medium boxes in August, but if the weather allows a good honey flow in the next couple months, they'll certainly have the population to take advantage of it!

I noticed something I haven't seen so obviously in the past -- we smoked the hives, primarily so we could scrape off burr comb between the boxes without angering hundreds of bees (we just crushed two or three each time) and when I inspected frames, I saw many more bees than usual with their butts sticking out of cells with ripening nectar.  They were obviously sipping some of the nectar, possibly filling up on sugar in the event that they had to leave in a fire.  I think it happened much more than usual because none of the honey was capped yet -- they were still evaporating water to get it thick enough to preserve -- and I wasn't really that aware of normal bee activity early last year before they started capping honey throughout the hive.

Tomorrow, we'll be visiting the Acreage where Meg and Jo now reside, but I don't really expect good weather.  I think I'll try to have a look at activity in the top box if it's not actually raining, but it doesn't look promising.  ONE of these days, I'll get out there to see what's going on in a second-year hive!