10/04/26 ✿ Opened the hive yesterday to take some frames out and extract the honey. Didn't actually check much besides general activity inside; the top box was completely capped! I took 6 frames from the middle of the super and spun them the same day. Experimented by just closing the lid back up and leaving the 6 frame gap, not really sure if it was successful but it was kind of necessary in this instance. When I opened the hive again to return them the bees were far more aggressive, they were landing on me and stinging my gloves and wouldn't leave me alone. By this time my smoker had completely burned out and was just spewing hot air so I got rid of it.
Some of the frames I took were perfect, but others had layers of honeycomb on the single frame, and either way using the heat knife was stupid difficult. I have an uncapping roller but we couldn't find it at that time, have since found it though and I'm looking forward to trying that next time. The comb was VERY soft, maybe because it's brand new. It's a very pale yellow colour! Got about 20 or so jars from this, gonna give a few of them to friends and neighbours. The honey tastes SO much better than last time, probably because last time they'd been fed on sugar water, and this time it was all collected from local flowers. I ended up throwing out a lot of the honeycomb prematurely, with honey still in it, because I was on a flight the next day, lol.

06/02/26 ✿ have since discovered that honey does not freeze. the stuff i put in the freezer (-18℃) instead gained a viscosity similar to caramel. is it because it’s a mixture of complex organic molecules? or is the sugar content too high? is that effectively the same problem? i’m not sure but my brief 2 second search did not afford me any answers and i wanted to record my thoughts

26/01/26 ✿ I should have opened the hive up far earlier, maybe even before christmas, because the honey in the single box (brood box) was mostly capped and they had used the empty space in the roof to build more comb and then fill it with honey. the fact that they had time to do that means I definitely should have checked on them weeks ago... The queen herself seems to be fine, though I didn't find her to be able to actually mark her or clip her so she can't swarm, but based on her laying pattern and the sheer amount of bees inside the hive (there's SO MANY MORE!!!) I think it's safe to say she's doing quite well. There's also no queen cells, so they haven't thought about swarming. Said new bees didn't run on the comb, something I'm excited about, since it means they're more docile. The comb itself is also so fresh and almost white, it's so pretty to look at, especially since my other hive has comb so old it's almost black (I'm replacing it!! slowly!!)
The past week I've been painting two old 8-frame hive boxes with waterproof (? i think? at least weatherproof) paint and now they're a brilliant bright white. I then painted the second one with a final coat of some leftover blue indoor paint and realised only after that it's far too dark and might affect the temperature inside the hive... I'm hoping that since it's in the shade anyway it should be fine. It is a gorgeous blue. Anyway, I replaced the brood box with the freshly painted white one, switching all the frames over slowly, and the blue one is the first super, full of some fresh frames lined with wax. And a freshly painted white roof on top ! I had to cut out some brood comb that was attached to the side of the old brood box, and I ended up sandwiching it in between two of the new frames in the super, which I'm going to regret later but I didn't want to sacrifice the brood comb when the hive is this young.
The rest of the comb, where it was attached to the old box and roof, I scraped off and put it in the bucket I'm meant to use for the honey. It sat for a couple days and when I opened it some of the bees were still alive and I got stung :/ I left the old box and lid in front of the hive, the bees have since cleared off and I can remove them entirely any day now (I'm lazy). The honey I got from the extra comb is very pale and super sweet, probably because the area I'm in has no natives and is mostly european flowers that are purely decorative. I'm a little afraid it's going to rot, since some of the comb wasn't capped and I'm worried it has a higher water content. The really runny stuff I froze; I'm going to use it for smoothies, lol.
The next time I open this hive should be closer to the end of summer, and hopefully by then the super has been filled out and I can get some more, better quality honey!