Just came in from the hive, where I put the hive-top feeder back on for a second round of feeding. I've been using a 'winter recipe' - 2.5 quarts of water and 10 lbs of sugar - in hopes of readying the bees for winter.
Still no new developments on the frames in the upper deep. Saw one swarm cell but I didn't remove it. (Ah, hindsight... why didn't I just knock it off? Oh well.) The queen seems to be very active, as one of the frames had a dense network of eggs, the other had a lot of capped and pearly white brood. The bees keep comin' and the honey doesn't stay. I can't figure that out. I found myself saying, out loud, to them, "I honestly don't know what you're going to do with this mess."
On the plus side, I saw zero hive beetles on the inner cover, where two weeks ago I had seen several. Many thanks to Linda for all of her advice via email and her awesome blog. She was able to ease my fears regarding SHB and also generally renewed my spirits.
We'll see what happens next week. Stay tuned.
(The above photo is not of my hive, but from beecare.com.)
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