Ten days since the last inspection. That’s not a long time in most contexts, but in a hive it’s enough for everything to shift. Day 85 was one of those days where the changes were obvious before we even suited up.
The First: no longer on training wheels
The biggest difference was at The First — our split. On day 75 this hive was almost eerily still. The queen was laying, but there were no foragers leaving, no traffic at the entrance, and we had a sugar water feeder on just to keep them fed. It felt like a colony that existed but wasn’t really doing anything yet.
Ten days later, completely different scene. Foragers are active. Bees coming and going steadily, bringing pollen back in. The population is visibly growing — more bees are being born every day, and you can feel the hive shifting from survival mode into something productive. We checked for fresh eggs and found them. The queen is still laying well.
We took the feeder off a while back and they haven’t needed it. A colony that’s feeding itself, foraging on its own, and growing its population — that’s no longer a fragile split hoping to make it. That’s a functioning hive. It’s the most satisfying thing in beekeeping when a colony you created from nothing starts acting like it knows what it’s doing.
The nuc: strips out, super on
The nuc had its mite treatment strips in for about two weeks, which is the standard duration. Today we pulled them out. The colony looks healthy — not dramatically bigger than day 75, but steady, and the mite issue we caught early seems to be under control. That’s the thing about varroa: if you catch it early and treat promptly, it’s a manageable problem. Ignore it, and it ends colonies.
The bigger milestone for the nuc was adding a honey super. That’s the extra box that goes on top and gives the bees room to store surplus honey — the honey that eventually becomes ours. You don’t add it until the colony is strong enough to actually use the space. Put it on too early and you’re just giving them empty real estate to patrol and heat for no reason.
The nuc was ready. Adding a honey super isn’t dramatic — you’re literally stacking a box — but it means the colony has crossed a threshold. It’s gone from “small starter hive we’re nursing along” to “colony that might produce something.” That’s progress.
The OG: a light touch
The OG is still the hive I think about the most. On day 75 we left it in a weak, defensive state with two strong queen cells that hadn’t capped yet. The big question — did a queen emerge? Is she laying? — is still unanswered, because today we made a deliberate choice not to open the brood box.
Sometimes the best thing you can do for a hive is leave it alone. If a virgin queen is in there getting ready to mate, or if she’s just started laying, opening the brood box and pulling frames is disruptive at exactly the wrong moment. So we stayed out.
What we did do was swap the two honey supers. The idea is simple: the bees tend to work the super closest to the brood box and ignore the one above it. By switching their positions — putting the empty one closer to the brood nest and the partially worked one on top — you encourage them to draw new comb on the fresh frames instead of just packing more honey into the frames they’ve already started. It’s a small management trick that keeps the bees productive without cracking open the part of the hive that needs to be left in peace right now.
The bigger picture
Day 85 felt like a turning point. Not because anything dramatic happened — no emergencies, no surprises — but because all three hives are moving in the right direction at the same time. The First is self-sufficient. The nuc is treated and expanding. The OG is being given space to sort itself out.
The queen situation in the OG is the open question. Next inspection we’ll need to go in and look. But today wasn’t the day for it, and knowing when to stay out of a hive is as much a part of beekeeping as knowing when to go in.
More soon.