Much Overdue Bee Update: June to mid-August

What with pioneer trek, family reunion, and a knee surgery, I've been a bit remiss in blogging our beekeeping adventures as of late.  And even though we've not added any more bee videos to our youtube channel, at least I can give you a few snapshots that show some of the things we're learning during our first bee season.
First week of June:

• We took our feeder boxes off and we also got a nice view of the "honey dome" which is a sign of hive prosperity.  

Second week of June: 

• Can you spot the queen, newly hatched eggs and royal jelly?  Plus there's some newly hatched brood - they are the really hairy ones.  

Third week of June:

• We noticed our bluebell hive was practicing making queen cups.  To our relief we learned that this is normal behavior and doesn't always mean a swarm is imminent.  They were just practicing.  Sorry, no still pictures of this, a little later on we'll get you some video.

Fourth week of June: 

• I wasn't there for this hive inspection (family events).  Ash reported nothing spectacular, just more of the same.  The hives were building up the comb and filling up the top brood box.

First week of July:

• When helping my father-in-law inspect his hives, some burr comb broke apart between frames and exposed this immature, bee pupa.  Yeah, she's not going to make it once her cell was opened prematurely.  Still, sort of interesting, in a really morbid and somewhat sad way.  
• Also, in the lower photo, can you spot the drone cell?  They really stick out in comparison to other brood cells.

Second week of July:

• No hive inspection due to pioneer trek.  

Third week of July:

• We decided to put a honey super on to see if we could get them to draw out comb and fill it in time to harvest this year.  Both brood boxes were drawn out and almost filled so we put a honey super on.  We also had a harvested (super) frame we borrowed from a friend that we put in the honey super which really got the bees going on drawing out the comb in that super.  Did not put the queen excluder on right away since we didn't want to discourage the bees from working up there.

Fourth week of July:

• Decided to put the queen excluder on.  

First week of August:

• Bees have filled and are starting to cap the honey in the "borrowed" super frame.

That's about all we have for now as far as updates.  Now that Ash is down with ACL repair, it will be just me doing inspections for the next little while.  Also, my father-in-law should be harvesting soon so I'll be sure to chronicle that.  Bees are amazing!