Hive #1 on a warm winter's day

Hive #1 has been looking very busy and I have been wondering what was going on inside.  Today it was warm enough to allow me to take a look.  

Busy front door

After taking off the lid, I was pleased to see a lot of bees inside the top cover.

Inside the Vivaldi box

In the super, there was only a bit of honey.

Under the Vivaldi box- top of super

 If a hive is really strong, all the frames would be covered with bees.  The top brood box had a small patch of brood at the bottom of the center frames and a few frames with capped honey and bee bread.  I guess the colony is not as strong as I thought since there was only a handful of bees on top of these frames.

Top of upper brood box

The bottom brood box had old,drawn comb, no brood or honey.  I didn't see the queen and assume she is in the top brood box.  At least I hope she's there still.

Looking down on bottom brood box

I've treated myself to a new tool, a frame puller, and used it today for the first time.  It really makes it a lot easier to remove a frame.

Using the frame puller

I received and put together the frames that I needed for the nucs.  I made them foundationless by putting the wedge sideways, using glue and a stapler.  As I pull brood and honey from the existing hives for splits, I'll replace them with the foundationless frames. 

Foundationless frame

Close up of my fine work

I used a maroon crayon

 I marked them with a crayon to keep track.

 A few weeks ago, bees were drinking water off the deck.  The water was there from my cleaning the beer fermenter.  I had long ago made a water station by the blackberries, but the bees never drank from there.  I made a new "pond" for them behind the new rose garden.  I haven't seen anyone drinking there yet.

New nucs built

This spring I intend to start some nucs in order to raise new queens.  There are many reasons for doing so as well as many methods.  One method is the "walk-away split".  Since this looks to be the simplest, I plan to do this.  Thus the need for nuc boxes.  Hive #1 seems to be the strongest, so I'll use it.  I can't wait until spring to get going.
I built the boxes using these plans.
The project went pretty well, just a few snags:  Karly helped me getting the sheet of plywood.  We tied it onto the roof of the Prius, but then realized we had tied the doors shut.  The printer did not print out the "1"s, so when I cut the pieces, I measured 9-1/8" instead of 19-1/8".  Fortunately, the remaining wood was big enough to cut all the parts.

All pieces cut and ready for assembly

The finished product