Our peek into the split was disappointing. We found a bit of honey but no eggs, no larva and no queen. I have to admit that I was completely focused on eggs and larva, so there could have been a queen, but neither Tim nor I spotted her.
The old hive came next. We only looked at four frames. Once we found the queen on the fourth frame, we sealed the hive back up. She was darker and a bit smaller than Helen, and I couldn't decide if she was mated or not. The hive generally seemed to be doing well. I didn't see any eggs or larva on those first four frames. In fact, most of the cells were empty--maybe they are being prepared for some serious egg laying?
The nuc was doing really well. We found a more blonde queen with a few stripes and a distended and lengthened abdomen. She looked much bigger than the unmated queens we were seeing earlier--so maybe she's done the deed. No eggs or larva. We need to do the math to figure out what we should be seeing in a healthy hive right now.
Tim gets all the credit for spotting the queens and making me oh so happy. I feel much better knowing that at least two of our hives have a queen! Now if they will just stop swarming and start laying some eggs!
Oh, and we decided to stop feeding them. They have loads of stuff stored and plenty of things are blooming now. I think they should be okay.
Yay!!!
The new queen in the 'old' hive:
The new queen in Alan's nuc box:
For the super bee-curious, the movies of the inspections are just a click away...
The Split:
The Old Hive:
Alan's Nuc Box:
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