The Westover Hive now has me wondering if they are pulling a prank on me. They are eating syrup like I have never seen a hive suck it down. The real proof will be in the next inspection, which I hope to do over the next few days and certainly on Friday at the latest. I will probably break the whole hive apart for the last time until July or something. Realistically, I just hope that they have drawn out a good portion of the top Deep and capped a bunch of honey. In a perfect world, they have drawn out 8 or 9 frames and are ready for a daggone honey super! I will put one on them, just to see what they do, but I will probably look to do a split of this hive.

This is my first swarm, so I have nothing to compare it against. I wonder if the very nature of a swarm is to build up this quickly. I can only compare it to the two Nuc’s that I picked up in May of last year and this hive is beating them hands down. This makes me wonder if this hive is a better ‘bee’. Or is it just the nature of a swarm? The other variable is the weather. Is the weather so much better this year that all bees are building up nicely? The proof will be in the pudding when I open up the two established hives this weekend. They should have done some serious work on the supers by now. If they haven’t, it will be more of an incentive for me to do the split on the swarm and try to increase my apiary with that gene pool.

Who knows. Come this weekend, I’m sure I will have some totally unexpected experiences and embarking on a course of action that I could not have foretold.