TenshiB, Tenframer can correct me if I'm wrong. But from what I've read they are sort of an insurance.
Okay, the hive inspection was done this afternoon to see if they have swarmed. I didn't see a queen, but I didn't have to. I have a medium super on top and two deeps on bottom. My plan is for at least the deeps to be my brood boxes and I would like the medium as well. The way it is going I will probably end up taking the medium off. They aren't the least bit interested in filling it as of yet. The golden rods are just about ready to pop open and there's acres and acres starting about 30 ft from the hive.
I pulled the top off and since it isn't drawn out I looked through it fairly quickly (plastic foundation). When I looked at the second one I was pretty sure at that time they had not swarmed. I went through it but didn't see the queen. Probably 3/4s of one and half of another frame isn't drawn out. The rest was wall to wall bees, brood, pollen, and honey. When I took the second one off and started to look at the bottom one, I knew what the answer was so I didn't bother. It too was wall to wall bee heads looking at me in between every frame. Hopefully that gives me the winter to read up on swarm traps, and splits.
Do you think with the abundance of GRs & others flowers around here they will fill the 8 frame medium out?
I tell you, I feel pretty good knowing that I still have my bees. It's been a long short summer for me and them. One of my biggest mistakes so far was not getting two or three packages instead of just one. One of the best things I've done was get an IPK small hive beetle trap from greenbeehives. I can't help it if I sound like a commercial for them. Once again today there wasn't the first beetle on the top board or inner cover. Last inspection there was zero The one prior I believe just two. The one before that 3 to 5. And before the trap 30 to 50 on the inner cover and 3 or 4 in the hive. I also believe moving more in the sun helped as well. This is peak insect season here too. Did I tell you I didn't have any beetles..,
So pretty much what concerned me was prior to the non-bearding there was a ton of bees out. Then when I went out there and only counted five on the landing board it scared me. Then when I never saw the numbers build back up it had me wondering. So I may have been right about it being a long way off from the source to the hive.
Thanks again all for you thoughts.