Beekeeping: Opened the Hive Today (May 29, 2010)

I opened the beehive today for the first time this year. I currently have two deep hive bodies on as brood chambers and there are three medium supers on top. I cleared an ant colony out of the bottom of the hive and took everything apart just to see how the bees were doing.

The brood chambers are jammed with bees and so heavy they are very hard to lift. The supers have little in them at the moment, but the bees are beginning to store nectar there--and it's only late May. Harvest this year is likely to be substantial. Everything appears to be in good shape. The photo shows bees cleaning up honey that was in cells broken when I pulled the first super off of the queen excluder.