Bees: Week 3. Hello Honey!

Papa and I did the Week 3 checkup on the bee hives this past weekend. Mom is gallivanting around Arizona so we did our best without her bee expertise. Our lovely ladies have been busy; we added our second deep box to each of the hives. Once the bees fill up the second box, they'll have their complete store of winter food stuffs. Any additional supplies of honey stored in the upper supers will be available for poaching by certain unnamed beekeepers. Ahem.

Here I am putting our second set of frames onto the existing hive. Look at our lovely ladies! No gloves, either. As you can see, the bees have 'drawn out' the comb, meaning that they have built wax cells in which to store honey and pollen. After filing each cell, the bees place a wax cap over the cell. Only a few uncapped cells (appearing like dark holes) are visible in this frame.