APRIL 10, 2019

HIVE #1 INSPECTION:

The bottom board was pulled out first. It looks like there were mites in this hive too. They're small, but if you look around you may find them.

Here's a close up of one of those nasty little critters:

We pulled out frames. Some looked fine and others, not so much.

This frame had a spotty laying pattern. A sign of a bad queen? Or maybe the queen is dead, there's disease or the worker bees are laying eggs?

Also, the cells have holes in them.

Some frames had the grayish look seen in the other hive--perhaps it is mold.

Some frames had honey, so the bees should have had plenty of food over the winter. 

More honey...

There were other frames of honey, as well. There was no problem with food supplies.

There were some frames I really didn't understand, like this one:

This one looked odd to me. Is that mold?  The color looks off, I think.

I guess all I can say is, this really didn't go as planned.  Beekeeping seemed so simple. It is not.