Vet2Be and Hubby went to check the hive today. They added a Ross Round super 2 weeks ago. The bees have been so busy that the comb is 70% drawn out on that super already! The Ross Round frames are really fun! They are round so when the bees are done filling them with honey, Hubby and Vet2Be will take out the round honey-comb and it will be ready to sell. A Ross Round is a about 5-3/4" deep.
They added another medium super today. A medium super is one of the white boxes that sit on the beehive, just shorter than the deep boxes. They are 6-5/8' deep. They hold the same number of frames (8 or 10 depending on the size of your hive) as the deep supers (or deep hive body which is 9-5/8" deep), but they don't weigh as much when they are full of honey. When full of honey a medium super can weigh about 40 pounds.
Interested in building your own hive? Look at Bee Source.com. There are plans there for different styles of hives, extractors, solar wax melters, plus lots of information on raising bees. Interested in learning more about bees? Check here: http://www.beeclass.com/dts/classes.htm.
Next thing on the list to buy will be a honey extractor. We'll need that within a month or so when it is time to harvest the honey.
Even though we put the bees in the 'wrong place' this year, they are doing extremely well. The hive population is bigger than expected, they are producing more honey and wax than expected, and they don't seem to have any trouble keeping cool in the hot desert summer.
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