Surprise Queen Laying Very Well

Isn't the queen pretty? Such a contrast to my first queen which was mostly black.

Working all day I am not home to watch the hive as much as I would like but I am just not convinced that they swarmed. There are sooooo manyyyyy bees in there now, as much as I would expect the hive to have for their first full spring. And they are LOUD - those rowdy Russians! :-)  

The top brood box is very heavy with honey. I'm really glad I made the decision to use all mediums instead of deeps. There were 3 queen cups along the bottom of one frame so I moved one full honey frame up into the super to give them some room for brood. this new queen is laying a very nice brood pattern already.

I did put the queen excluder on along with another honey super. I'm early for the extra super but I plan on pretty much leaving them alone for the next few weeks except for a quick peek in a couple of days to see if they decided they won't work through the excluder and in that case, I'll just remove it and leave it off.

This is such a great hive! Except for the surprise queen, everything really has been textbook and they have taught me so much. I have decided on requeening both hives this fall with new Russian queens to keep the benefits of the Russians bees strong in the hives.