Spring Harvest and Inspection

Posted of FB Top Bar Site

Spring Harvest, 2nd spring questions and comments:

1) See the pics, please. A few areas of mold and entombed bees on the honey bars. I simply cut those areas off and harvested. The honey was otherwise perfectly fine. Is this typical to find after winter?

2) Bottom board under honey bars had a good amount of dead, fermenting bees (pic in the plastic container). I scraped as much out as I could. I assume this is from nectar they weren't fast enough to cap or dry out last fall and is (or is not?) normal? I do recall some times early this spring seeing liquid seeping out from the bottom of the hive, which was too thin to be honey.

3) Tons of dead bees in the brood area on the bottom board, seemingly mainly dry, or at least not fermenting. I did not remove these. I assume (?) that as the bees build up strength they'll dedicate more time to cleaning these up? Should I have helped them out?

4) I had about 10-12 bars of honey going into winter. It really seemed in my inspection today that they barely ate through any of this...I took two bars today, leaving a good full 8 with honey. Seems less than I would have thought.

5) They otherwise look good. More are flying and the brood combs seem more populated than a couple weeks ago.