Top Bar Beekeeping in Arlington Heights

The last bar is almost all capped and full size, must weigh a good 7 pounds of honey.  Others further in just as far along. This makes 19 bars so far, from 8 original.  10 brood and 9 honey or there abouts.

They are horrendous.  A swarm is on me instantly.  It is even hard to squat down to look in the window for any amount of time just to see where things are at! Bought a couple microfiber towels and put one in the open side, just to see if I can catch any beetles.

3-4.  Were they small hive beetles?  They did not look like the pictures I have seen of them, but would other beetles go into a hive?  Not sure.  Asking the TB FB page people. One said they are likely just regular beetles if you don't see the barbell antenna and nothing to worry about. Did not see any issues with the honey.

Seems less activity in/out, no bearding.  They have been bearding for many days.  It has been like the Amazon out there, lots of rain, lots of humidity, lots of mosquitoes. Finished making my observation hive with some of Celia's painting help.

More flying in during my looking at the entrance around 4:30 yesterday.  Probably saw 20 zoom in over the course of a few minutes.  Should I have any worries?  Who knows.  Probably not. Lots of sound/fanning at the entrance.  Must have been humid/hot/trying to evaporate nectar. The bar put at/near the end of brood is obviously built out well already.  The added one in the honey area has been too difficult to see, so I assume they are working on it but can't tell. Lots of rain last night and this morning. Yellow tickseed/coreopsis still in bloom around lake.  Other flowers blooming too.  Not sure there really will be a dearth in this area with the lake and landscape plantings?  No sign of one yet anyway. Nice orientation flights past couple days, so I assume all is well.

Not much to do other than watch.  Combs are being built on new bars, and nectar seems still widely available given the activity. I seem to have been noticing more drones inside the window I am over the honeymoon of wanting to watch them all the time.  Darn. Still trying to think of some gadget/change to make this more accessible/better for people.

All looked good, checked all the way to the end of the brood.  Saw a lot of capped brood, no larvae or eggs that I could tell, but I never go far enough in.  Too scared I guess of upsetting something. Got a little piece of honeycomb out that was protruding.  Tasted great. And the goofball: And a better picture:

So it does look like they know what they are doing, if they opened it up! Going to do a deep inspection today, at least to the end of the brood nest so that I can see if they are honeybound or not.  Will involve cutting brace comb on quite a few bars. Definitely a lot of capped honey over the past week or so.

Pretty hot outside!  High 80s.  Lots of capped honey seen.  Will need to do an inspection (with smoke and gloves!) on Saturday if cool enough. Even More!

Interested to see if it will help them get in and out any easier.  Looks like it might.

I suppose it eventually had to happen.  Doing a deeper inspection today, had a bar with mostly brood on the stand and something made one of them mad, stung 3 times in a split second.  Like a hard pinch, and already can't tell where I was stung.   Running away from the hive praying they weren't following.  Going back took a little effort but they were fine. I added an empty (14) after the last brood bar (#10) and between the last two honey bars. The last bar between brood/honey is a mix of a little honey and a lot of drone cells, unless someone says otherwise, I am chalking that up as that's what they felt they needed to do. So I have about 9 combs of brood/drone cells and 6 of honey, a lot being capped.**Incorrect.  The brood I thought was drone was not domed near enough.  It is worker brood.  Yeah! Also added 1/8" spacers between the honey bars to add space. This is the comb I thought was drone at first, but watched enough videos to...