Fail on Trying to Check on the Queen

I had a pretty thorough failure today, and with some thought and research, I am realizing why I failed to really find any evidence that the queen was in residence or laying, and there are multiple reasons.

Let's go through exactly what I did, first, and then what it was that really went wrong and where I lost heart and what I want to do about it the next time I go into the hive.

First off, I didn't get any pictures because I did it on my own while John was at some meeting that evening. So I didn't have my usual backup; however, I'd also gotten the mistaken impression that I should go in five days after the queen was released. I don't know where I got that number, and one Gabriel Petrut commented much later on one of my latter posts that one should wait until plenty of comb has been built, at least a week, if not more to give the queen time to go.  I also read, later, that one shouldn't disturb the hive too much in the first ten days (after installation? After queen release? I'm not sure) or else the workers might ball the queen.  Gah!

So I went in today. I put on all my equipment, went out to the box fairly late in the day, as my son was busy inside. The weather was windy, cloudy, and just a bit rainy, sprinkling even on an on again and off again basis.  And the girls seemed crankier with the weather. I did use sugar syrup in a spray to calm them down now and again, but it was rougher going than the installation or the queen release.

I wasn't sure, at the time, if it was just because I was more nervous without my husband along, or if it was just me... and not the bees...

But I only had the one box. I had an empty box above, to keep a zip-loc bag of sugar syrup with holes in it. The feeder box had been leaking, so we'd taken it off, cleaned it out, dried it, and resealed it. but it was still drying, and I thought I needed to see what was going on.

I didn't really think things through, and just lifted one of the middle frames first.  Something gave and then broke, and I was holding a frame with a lot of bees on it. I looked at both sides, and definitely saw honey and deep gold pockets all through the comb, a lot of the center was capped, but the edges were open, and when I looked closely, I couldn't see anything in the cups that I could recognize.

Then I was horrified to find that the next frame over was doubled up on comb! They'd actually attached a whole extra sheet of comb to one side of the frame, so I had absolutely no means of looking under it to see the bees that were hidden in the pocket between!  I was so flummoxed by this that I had to stop and breathe for a bit. I broke off one of the pieces experimentally, and the bees got pretty angry with that, no duh, because I was breaking their home.

So I put it back, very slowly, as the bigger mass of comb meant that the frame was too big to fit into its usual slot, and a whole cascade of workers was pushed onto the top of the next frame! I was upset about that, too, and just decided to stop there and close things ups. I hadn't found specifics of her being there or not being there, and it really made me kind of obsessed for the next week, as I didn't want to bother them again. We did feed them, did fix the feeder and get plenty of straight syrup to them, but I didn't dare go in for another week plus...

Afterwards I did this research:

• Studied a number of YouTube videos showing brood cells and their difference from honey cells.
• Realized that most inspections are done on sunny, calm days, in the middle of the day.
• Figured out that I should pull out one of the completely empty side frames, first.
• Realized that I really needed to try out the smoker instead of just the sugar syrup spray.
• Realized it would be easier with my husband as moral support, because emotional support really helped with the adrenaline rush and the tunnel vision effects while I'm still very new to this.
• Looked up the development stages of the larvae and realized that I REALLY had to give the queen more time before I looked for capped brood, as it would be at least eight days until they'd be developed enough to cap. 
• Counted the days from the release to figure out what to look for when.
• Had another beginner beekeeper open a 'messed up hive' with comb being built so that it connected two frames! Eek. But learned from him that none of the experienced keeps had any specific advise to offer him, other than to make sure that the frames of any supers were spaced correctly, 3/8ths of an inch between frames.
• Sat back and realized that the doubled comb was not THAT big a deal. It was all right if I couldn't find the queen if I could find viable brood.