I made a trip out to the farm to check on the two new hives. Last month they had little to no honey stored and weren't drawing new comb. When I checked on them now they still hadn't drawn any comb but they did have enough honey to make it through the Winter. Probably. One hive was a little light, probably about 40 lbs of honey stored. The other is good, with about 55 lbs stored. If we have a mild winter they will eat about 20 lbs and a cold winter will take about 50 lbs so I am taking a bit of a risk with the lighter hive.
While I was going through the hives I removed the crazy cross comb from before, I didn't have enough drawn frames to give proper comb guides so the bees went off of the frames in a few places. Since the comb won't be used until the Spring there's no harm in removing it now.
After inspecting both hives all I had left to do was to reduce their entrances for the winter, but I didn't bring anything along to do that with. I grabbed a few pine branches of the right width and broke them down to the right length and put them in place, I think it will work just fine.
Just one hive left to check, I'll get to that one tomorrow.
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