List of things to do on Sunday, 20 June

30th day of drone comb is 24 June, but that's not a handy date so we're set for Sunday, 20 June at 7:30 a.m. (hoping for sleepy bees). Here's a to-do list:

On Saturday, 19 June, remove the west hive's last month's frozen drone comb frame from the freezer.

On Sunday, 20 June:

West hive: remove single honey super, and estimate weight.

Remove the queen excluder.

Remove drone comb frame from the top brood box, and, replace with the thawed drone comb frame in the busiest part of the brood. Place the removed drone comb frame in a plastic bag, and when you are finished work, put this in the freezer, labeled.

Lift the top brood box, and look for queen cells hanging down, and if you find these, destroy them, and mix up the busy part of the brood boxes a bit, give them a couple of new frames in exchange for old frames in the middle of the brood, and this will also serve to give them fresh frames in the brood boxes.

Replace the queen excluder.

If the honey super was heavy, give them a honey super of empty foundation on top of the brood boxes.

Put the heavy honey super on top of the empty one, and take a look at it: put the full comb on the outsides, and the unfinished comb in the middle.

East hive:

This hive has two honey supers at the moment. Remove these, having estimated weight. Remove the queen excluder. Take a look at the drone comb placed in the brood chamber three-plus weeks ago. You may find that because this was incorrectly (was it?) waxed, they have raised worker comb on it. Pull it, and freeze it either way. Replace with a frame of drone comb foundation. Look for queen cells between the brood boxes, destroy these, mix up the brood boxes a bit per above, replace old frames with new frames of worker foundation, etc. to give them some housekeeping to do during swarm season. Replace the queen excluder, and if the two boxes were heavy, give this hive a third empty honey super directly above the excluder, and take a look at the honey supers removed, move the empty comb to the middle and put the full comb to the sides, put them back in the order they were taken off.