Overcrowded?

With all this great weather recently the bees don't really seem to know if they are coming or going, having taken their honey and reducing the hive size down to just a brood box for the winter I was faced with a lot of bees outside the hive most days this week, so time to check and see if I can work out why, also time to think about feeding them so the colony won't starve over the winter.

I prepared the feed and got everything ready and then opened the hive, only to find that every brood frame was full of honey, so much so that there was very little brood and no space for any eggs to be laid, the poor old Queen must have been crossing her legs! My concern then was without any eggs being laid would there bee enough bees to survive the long haul through winter, the older bees having been exhausted with all the very late foraging?

So on the spur of the moment a quick change of plan, obviously no need to feed them, but I wanted more space in the brood box for the queen, so one goes a super again and five drawn frames that I had just weeks before harvested the honey from, I'm hoping the bees will fill these and then make space for egg laying?

But who really knows what goes through a colony's mind, will have to wait and see. Will also have to decide just when to put the apiguard in to treat the varroa, once in the hive definitely no more honey will be fit to be harvested.

Decisions decisions!!