Inspection Time

I slacked on making these notes, so I'm going to remember as much as I can.

In the backyard, the green nuc's queen is still caged, but they are chewing around the outside of the cage.  I pushed the cage in a little more, but I'm afraid that they will end up chewing a big enough hole to release the queen which will defeat the purpose of confining her.  If she can stay in for another 11 days then we'll be in good shape.  There were two capped queen cells on the frame that the cage was located on, but I didn't see any others.  I wasn't necessarily surprised to see queen cells, but I wasn't expecting to see them on the frame that the queen was located on.  I would have thought that her pheromones would have maintained order in the hive, especially that close to where she is located.

I didn't open the Auburn nuc or the light green hive.  I was trying to beat out a rainstorm and think that they're probably okay.

In the white hive, I found what appears to be a virgin queen.  I expect that she should be laying by 5/20 or 5/21.  They aren't really doing much with the super but still have some room in the brood chamber (i.e. are no longer as honey bound as they had been, though they have more nectar in the brood chamber than I'm happy with.

The orange hive is starting to draw out their super.  Some cells are even being filled.  They probably won't need another this season, but I'll keep an eye on them.


In the outyard, the hive in the old stand is troubling.  I saw capped brood, but no eggs or larvae, no queen of any variety, and no queen cells (though there was what looks like a torn down queen cell but I'm unsure of it's age).  Population also seems lower than it should.  I gave them a test frame from Hive 2, and will check on it in a week.  They had a laying queen a week ago.  I'm always afraid that I crushed her, but even if I did that then they should have raised an emergency queen from an egg.  Another possibility is that they immediately superseded her.  But in that case, there should be a sealed queen cell somewhere.  The population is still lower than I'd like.  Once I see what they are doing with the test frame, I'll make a decision about giving them a donor.

The hive in the new stand is booming.  The top brood box had 6-7 frames drawn out.  I went ahead and gave them the unfinished super from last year.  It hadn't thawed as much as I would have liked, but it is what it is.  They were heavily bearding on the front of the hive and I thought they might need more room.  We'll see how it turns out.  I'm considering giving them an empty super in a week and letting them go for the season.