Today was the first warm day this month that I could open hives and check for brood. I was very pleased to find that both capped brood and larval were present. Several hives have a good amount of honey so I only added protein supplement to them. I added candy and protein to the hives that were light and moved the bottom super to the top on all hives. I took my time looking at frames and found the queen in several hives. I have a few more hives to inspect tomorrow.

One hive has a lot of brood and also a lot of drones and drone cells in the middle super. At first I thought there was a drone lying queen and the colony was in trouble. I was moved into the bottom super and found three frames of capped brood in a good solid pattern. Just when I think I know something about bees they surprise me! That hive will need extra attention as I think it is working on swarming. Tomorrow I’ll rearrange the honey frames on it using the checker boarding technique. It will be interesting to see if that works.