Abe and Leo opened up the bees again yesterday.
I thought Leo might be scared after getting stung last time, but he did great. He was a little nervous, but his excitement easily overcame the fear. He did exactly what Abe told him to, passed his dad different tools and even operated the smoker for most of it. Abe did occasionally have to tell him to get out of the way, as he spent most of the time with his head inside the hive!
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So how is our new hive doing? Extremely well. They have now filled half of the barrel hive (see Honey Cow howto). They have a lot of brood and a decent amount of honey. We didn't rob the honey as the rain season hasn't really kicked off yet, which means the wild flowers haven't started. However, we did take just a little bit, so that we could all have a taste - delicious, dark, oak and acacia blossom.
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The bees remained super calm throughout the whole thing. Most of them were out working, as they did it in the middle of the day. When Abe started getting into the brood comb, the bees started to hum a pretty obvious warning, but said no more when he left their babies alone.
All in all a great check-up. So pleased to see the hive is strong and healthy.