Beekeeping: Week 1, Day 3

I checked one the bees for the first time today since Saturday when I hived them. I got the bucket of sugar water, the spray bottle, hive tool, and bee brush and put on my suit and veil. When I walked up to the little hive, I was a little scared at how little activity was going on and how remarkably quiet it was. I was worried they had swarmed or didn't take to the hive.  I saw one or two bees fly toward the hive entrance so I loosened the strap and lifted off the top cover to check it out.

HOLY SMOKES there was a TON of bees in there. They were flowing out of the inner cover hole like water. When I took off the inner cover, the inside of it was COMPLETELY covered in bees! THOUSANDS of them, and EVERY single frame was chock-full-o-bees.

My tasks included:

1. Make sure the queen was out of her cage.
2. Remove her from the cage if she is not.
3. Refill the feeder and 
4. Check on the worker bees progress of the comb. 

First thing I did was refilled the whole feeder. I'm not sure how empty it was, but I had to use two FULL spray bottles to get the syrup to the top of the feeder. Next, I pulled out the queen's cage, and found there were tons of bees on and around it, but no queen. (Good sign!) I then used the hive tool to pull out a middle frame that looked like it held the most bees and started to scan for signs of the queen. Thinking there was NO WAY I was going to be able to find her, I just spent time admiring the girls work and checking out the comb. Not only was the comb already starting to take shape, but I spotted the queen on the second side of my first frame! (Without the big white dot on her back, I wouldn't have been able to find her.) She was walking around normal, happy and scoping out the joint. I couldn't see if she was laying eggs or not because there were so many bees covering the whole frame, but my guess is, I'll have a better idea on Saturday.

Until then, I hope the Queen finds my hive suitable to start making more bees...