Well, a week or so ago I did my second harvest from my hive. At the time, I figures my bees were pretty much done for the season (this was before Michael Bush explained about waiting for a hard frost, etc.), so I didn't replace all the frames I removed. I think I left 6 or so.
This was the bad thing.
Last night, I went to collect the frames I had left under the outer cover for the bees to clean. I noticed that they had not only cleaned them, but started building up the cells again. (They had only been there for about 3 days!). Out of curiousity, and because of the unexpectedly high level of activity, I decided to peak under the inner cover.
!
!
It seems my bees have been busy indeed. They have much more honey. Plus, they even started building a sort of freestanding comb hanging fromt the inner cover.
So, now I don't know what to do. I figure the best thin is to wait until the frost then basically go in, remove the upper super, or whatever its called (leaving of course the two already there), taking off the queen excluder, and chase or brush the bees away from the honey chamber.
Then I can uncap the honey and try harvest even the freestanding comb, and clean the super, etc, and everything else up for next season.
Does this sound like a plan?
This was the bad thing.
Last night, I went to collect the frames I had left under the outer cover for the bees to clean. I noticed that they had not only cleaned them, but started building up the cells again. (They had only been there for about 3 days!). Out of curiousity, and because of the unexpectedly high level of activity, I decided to peak under the inner cover.
!
!
It seems my bees have been busy indeed. They have much more honey. Plus, they even started building a sort of freestanding comb hanging fromt the inner cover.
So, now I don't know what to do. I figure the best thin is to wait until the frost then basically go in, remove the upper super, or whatever its called (leaving of course the two already there), taking off the queen excluder, and chase or brush the bees away from the honey chamber.
Then I can uncap the honey and try harvest even the freestanding comb, and clean the super, etc, and everything else up for next season.
Does this sound like a plan?