Hive weigh-in
Queen Anne: 117 lbs (+12.4 lbs from last week!!)
Queen Beatrice: 47.5 lbs (+2.5 lbs from last week)
I'm trying things a little different with the video length. I know the internet can often give us short attention spans so I've been trying to keep the videos somewhat short by breaking them up where it seemed most logical. But instead of breaking up this video into 3 or 4 shorter videos I just kept it as one piece and got a little more aggressive with the editing (cutting out most of the time where I'm just putting frames back or prying things apart). I kept this video focused just on Queen Anne though and have Queen Beatrice in the next part.
Some of my favorite YouTube series are longer length videos now, and I don't mind that they're 30-60 minutes. In fact, one show I like to watch is usually about 30 minutes each episode. They tried an experiment with breaking it up into 4 segments and the audience revolted. So maybe internet video is ready for longer formats and can stretch beyond the 3 minute mark. Let me know what you think in the comments, if you have a preference for more short-length chopped up videos (as I've been doing) or fewer long-length videos (like this one).
Anyway, on to the inspection - The brood pattern is still looking good and they have plenty of room in the brood nest. They continued to bring in a good supply of nectar (without me feeding them) and made some progress drawing out more comb and filling up their honey stores. There's a great deal of pollen in the hive, so no shortage there. In fact, I found it interesting the way they've organized their food stores. There's honey and pollen to be found in small quantities all over the hive, scattered within the brood nest to make for easy access. But the mass quantities of honey are stored, for the most part, in the top box, while the extra pollen is concentrated more in the bottom box.
Video Link
The swarm we caught 3 weeks ago (named Queen Beatrice) is doing very well. They have a very good looking brood nest and should be getting some "new recruits" this week. So far they haven't wasted any resources with building drone comb, but that's sure to change once the population gets higher and they have enough resources to spend on drones. They only gained 2.5 pounds over last week, but it looks to me like they've maxed out their comb capacity for the current population. I don't think they're going to be drawing out much more until they have more bees.
Video Link
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