Last week we added a super to Carmady's hive. Carmady is the name we selected for our new package at the house. So she is now at two full deeps both for the brood chamber. They are taking off slower than I would like but it is still progess.
Reina - I have been watching Reina very closely because I thought she had swarmed on me. I don't really know if that is the case because there are tons of bees and they are doing very well. She has two supers full of honey (mediums) and I went through and checkerboarded her again. I did this about two weeks ago but it needed to be done again. The idea is that you focus on the super directly above the top brood chamber. What you do is take it and put a frame of honey and then and empty frame and then a honey frame and continue in that fashion. Then on the super on top of that you do the opposite, empty frame and then honey and so on. Basically it tricks the bees into thinking they are not strong enough to swarm. I will let you know if it works. Since they are a pretty strong hive and things are going well.
Brunhilda - who was the strongest hive going into winter is now the weaker of my two colonies that survived. She is doing well and has about a super full of Honey ready to go. I am afraid that I am going to harvest sooner than expected.
At this point (after last year) I would almost say a slightly weaker but healthy hive seems to be the best for over wintering.
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