Opened the boxes to check if I can harvest honey

August 13

I smoked the small hive B and put the queen excluder between the top and 2nd box. This was Saturday morning between 9:15 and 9:30 am.

I took the large hive A apart but there was brood in the top 3 boxes as well as capped pollen so I removed the bottom box and put the feeder box on Hive A. So now there are 4 boxes. I think I'll try to remove the top box/honey in September. One issue is that my top boxes (which I intend to remove for the winter/harvest some honey) are the ones with escape holes, so if I take them off, I'll have to drill holes in the "next" top boxes :)

There seems to be plenty of honey throughout the combs but there isn't one solid box of honey.

I used the smoker, the string technique and wedges to separate the boxes and I put a big piece of cardboard down to prevent "robbing."  I set the boxes on the cardboard so if any honey would spill, I could remove it from the scene.

August 14

Sunday I took the top box off of the small hive but when I examined it, about 4 of the 8 combs which I removed there was way too much brood, so I replaced the combs exactly where I had removed them from and put the feeders on Hive B.

I took the large hive apart but ended up putting it back together because there was a lot of brood and larvae. I pulled some larvae and none of them had any mites on them. But I have not done a formal mite check/count.  I put the feeder back on Hive A

August 21

Checked the feeders, and will need to fill them tomorrow. Carpenter ants are in the sawdust of hive B and as I was trying to brush them away, an irritated worker stung me in the left cheek!!! Methylprednisolone and Diphenhydramine begins :(

August 22

Sunday, I checked the feeders and topped up the jars on Hive B, the one jar on Hive A was empty so I filled it but the second jar was 2/3 full so I left it.  I wore my veil today!! Angry little workers this time of year.

This is the top box of Hive B before I took it apart for inspection:

 Mark took these pictures (explaining the finger) but this shows a comb with some capped honey, capped pollen, nectar and larvae.

 Here is a close up of the comb:

Every larva I look at, looks like this, no mites the way I see them photo'ed from other hives:

Here's the video as I removed the top bar/comb to look at it:

3 3/4 quarts of beautiful honey

So I still have some left to press out of the combs but the 4 combs yielded nearly 4 quarts of honey - yum! Here are the 8 oz bears and then there were two 1 quart Mason jars as well:

pulled some honey with help from my friends

Today, it was nice around noon, prior there were thunderstorms.
Warm out so Tom and Michelle came out and we opened both hives.
I used the fishing the technique after I propped up the corners with small wedges.
Once separated and smoked, we took off the top box from hive A (the big hive) and pulled 2 combs of honey off. We also took the 5th box off, so now there are 5 windowed boxes.

This is the top box from which we had just removed 2 combs on the left.

 This is the 2, 3, 4th boxes:

 Some of the comb in my bucket before I crushed it:

 So the comb in the bag after I came inside. There is capped honey but open cells too

 Comb from Hive A with extra wax:

We removed 2 combs from the small hive , Hive B. This small hive had ?supersedure cells so may have lost the queen. We didn't look through all of the combs, but there weren't eggs in the one comb we checked.

As I was picking up the comb to put it in my extractor/gravity bucket, I got stung on my right index finger.

Wednesday June 15 2016 Mouse guards

I removed the mouse guards to increase the openings for air circulation, I probably should have done that well before this.

Feeders off June 11, 2016

I took the syrup feeders off Hive B and one was nearly empty and the other was completely empty.
Lots of activity at the hives, knocked some wasp hives out of the roofs.

Update

so I'm very excited because someone other than my family is reading my blog.

I saw bees gathering on Hive A and sent pictures to experts - Jim Kloek at Nature's Nectar and David Heaf et al in the UK - and they all thought it was a swarm or secondary swarm.
Well by evening (this was last Sunday) it was smaller and Monday it was gone!

so if they did swarm, I missed it.

But there are still bees working the combs so I'm not sure what else to do at this point.
I do not have feeders on that hive, though I did put some pollen patties on that are almost gone as of yesterday.

People in the UK group did comment on the fact that I have too many boxes on and they thought they were full of honey. But as stated, when I tried to take off the top box, there was capped pollen at the bottom of the middle combs so I only took out one comb on the edge and replaced the top bar there. That was before this "swarm" phenomenon.

I had so many boxes on because they have comb filling 4 boxes then the next box doesn't have a window so to make sure they had plenty of room and "didn't swarm" (nice thought anyway), I had the 6th box on (windowed) for insurance. They have started one comb in there so I thought it was smart to give them the room.

I'm going to wait until the end of June or July, I guess, to try to remove the top two boxes - if it looks like they're filling the bottom one.

I honestly wish I could just transplant David Heaf over here to get me through a season of this because it feels like trial and error (more error) as I try to leave them alone to do their thing. OR I wish there was a group of Warre beekeepers around SE Minnesota.

Hive B is still eating its syrups (1:1) and pollen is nearly gone but the nectar flow is about to start so I'll take the feeders off this week.

The secondary swarm (Cast) was larger in the morning:

 Here it is that evening:

Armed to the gills May 22, 2016

Completely covered, smoker in hand, I took off the top box but it wasn't full of honey, so I just removed one comb of honey.
It's draining in the bucket right now.
So the big hive still has 6 boxes (too many but I'm not going to try to remove the bottom one - too heavy)