Honey flow is starting

I went out to the apiray to just check on things and to add supers if need be, since in my own hives the bees are already filling supers with honey. I opened the overwintered vertical hive, with the foam insulation, and they had completely filled the top box with honey. I was in a hurry and wanted to leave a real inspection for the field day, so I added TWO empty supers to that hive because it will be a week and a half before the field day and they are certainly busy. This time of year, you need to make room for them to make honey and expand the brood nest. Swarming isn't the only issue, some hives will just stop gathering honey and sit around and do nothing if they are full!

I opened the small split we made to replace the package hive and it was up in the second box working happily and calmly. I didn't check down in, saving that for the field day, I just added a honey super to them. I would guess by their behavior that they successfully made a queen, but we will check for sure on the field day on June 13, 2015.

I then checked the long hive. It was very busy. There was a lot of honey frames left from overwinter that we had just left in the back of the hive. I took out four, most of which I think are extractable. I filled in the empty space with empty frames. They were looking very good and were working the first half of the hive. I closed them up, again saving a real inspection for the field day. I just felt we needed to give everyone room to make honey until we get out there again.