Fantastic Early TBH Inspection
I'm in lower south-east TN and we had a really nice warm day last Saturday. I decided to take some time and check out the inside of my TBH.
I did expect to see a decent population because my other hive must have lost their queen during mid-winter and they all migrated over to my only other hive. So I knew I should be expecting to see a decent number of bees. Boy was I surprised!
This hive looks like it's about to blow up. There was 8 or 9 bars that already looked about 80% covered by capped brood. I saw some brood that was actually hatching out already. Then they had 3 or 4 bars filled with nectar, but very small amount actually capped.
I'm pretty excited about this b/c this was my first year at beekeeping and I'm just now feeling like it was really succesful. We're getting a good cold snap right now through this weekend, but it should really start warming up over the next weeks. Looks like I'll have to start really managing the hive again here soon.
Re: Fantastic Early TBH Inspection
Glad you're enjoying the hobby. Not to rain on your parade, but I had the same thing last year and I almost lost the hive due to swarming. I was able to save it after re queening. I have my second hive this year and it looks just like you describe. I was able to get out there and yesterday add a bunch of blank bars to hopefully give them enough expansion space to keep them from swarming.