The middle hive that made it through the winter ended the winter with about 50 pounds of honey and it's going like crazy! I've had to keep adding space, and the queen is laying so frequently she keeps 20-30 frames of brood cooking at any one time! They're also obviously bringing in honey, and while it's been a bit difficult for me to track recently since it's spread out throughout the 9 medium boxes, I think they're going to shoot into higher supers very soon. Since the hive is higher than I am, and the queen has decided to lay in some of the higher boxes, I'm going to have to spend a few hours sorting it out at some point (putting all the brood at the bottom and honey at the top) and I'll probably have to steal honey at least twice to keep it at a manageable height.
It's not a bad problem to have, but as I'm selling my house and have to move in a few weeks, I'm going to have to let the bees run on autopilot for a while. I'll try to give them plenty of space to discourage swarming, but that might be an inevitable consequence of my move.
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