This was the first time we really got into all the hives this year. Sugar shims were still on. So removing those was a big part of the effort. One or two of the shims were mostly untouched and saved for later use. The rest were cleaned out and stored. Many had comb built up in them. Is the queen in there laying? We used smoke to chase the bees down out of the sugar shim so we could remove the comb and melt any clean wax foundation.
We inspected every hive. Some full and some quick. Some we lifted the bottom box up just to check its bottom for queen cups. Different people prefer a less or more full inspection. Drone brood was everywhere. That's good for the Spring so new queens can mate. Queen cups were present in many hives, but I think none of them were charged. We found a few unmarked queens and marked them blue.
Nothing appeared to have swarmed yet. But many hives were loaded with brood and looked ready to explode.
If there were charged queen cells we would have split a few hives. The "old" queen goes to the new hive.
It'll be interesting to see how next week goes.