July 1st, Sunday, I spent the day preparing all I would need to add a super on each of the hives. Shallows, except for a medium 10 frame on my backyard hive that is much deserving. Funny, they are in the most shade of all and seem to be the most robust hive.
I wrote in my bee journal the details but basically it was just routine, with this exception: The stream-side hive was creating some sort of rope of bees from the top of the hive lid, through the empty shallow I use for placing feed, and attaching themselves to the inner cover. When I took off the lid, they dropped in a plop to the grass. I did not see any evidence of the queen and they had not built up any wax on the lid...however, when I went back to pick up the hive pieces I'd left out so the bees could find their own way home, there was one single bee left and actually stuck with propolis to the lid! Was this on purpose? What were they doing? They almost looked like a swarm but too small. It took a long time for them to get out of the grass and move on. - I realize now after going to the organic beekeeping conference that the bees were building their own comb. There was a natural start to this on the inner cover at the end of the rope and pollen was already stored in it. They were telling me it was time for a super. In the future I will try letting them draw their own comb.
The middle hive was again not very robust. I could have left the super off but a nectar flow is on....none of the hives ate the syrup I left a few days ago...and just thought I'd error on the prudent side. I'll go in and take a good look in a week or two.
