Cascadia

When I peeked inside my hives this afternoon I made a surprising discovery.  Honey - and lots of it!  Up until this point they have been using all of the nectar they gather to feed babies and build wax comb, so my hives were alarmingly low in stored honey.  Now all of the frames are fully drawn in wax and there is tons of honey everywhere. I would guess 75% of the frames have stored honey, when two weeks ago there were none.  Busy girls! 

I didn't find the queen, but there were plenty of new eggs.  Now that the yellow markings are worn off I am embarrasingly bad at locating them. 

This is a view inside the honey super I added last weekend.  It's filled with brand new frames and a few second-hand frames with already-drawn comb.  The bees are just beginning to work the super, and you can see which frames they prefer.  The "used" ones are already full of honey, front and back. 

Here is one of the "used" honey frames, almost entirely covered with honey and REALLY heavy.  Next year, they won't have to spend their time and energy building wax; they can just get down to business. 

So while my bees were busy all weekend creating food for themselves and (future) treats for me, I was busy too.  My friends and I did a lot of this...

...and even more of this...

...and a WHOLE LOT of this...