We had our first official inspection by a state sanctioned inspector yesterday and it went GREAT! She went through the hive and we found the queen, checked for mites and hive beetles and only found one beetle. She said that the hive looked very healthy and there was a moderate to heavy amount of adult bee population. It was EXTREMELY encouraging to hear good things from someone who knows bees! She also suggested that if I am going to split in the spring, and I intend to, it would be a good idea to go ahead and feed the bees so they can have as many stores as possible to get them off to a better start, so I intend to start feeding solid food this week. All in all a good report and emotionally uplifting 🙂