Combined Hives Today

I was hoping that I'd find a supersedure queen today but instead I found no eggs, brood or queen in the Catherine hive so I moved it over to combine with the Alexandra hive. I could have moved some brood over so they could make a queen but at the end of June, it's just too late in the season to essentially start over. The hive would never be ready for winter in time.

I used the newspaper method of combining the two hives by placing a single layer of  using newspaper between the two. This will allow time for them to integrate as they chew through the paper and prevent fighting. So now I have three deeps on one hive. The bottom one will eventually become empty and can be removed, or the bees will keep storing syrup in it and they'll head into winter with a ton of honey!

Catherine the Not-So Great Queen

Alexandra Hive Brood Pattern

The good news is that the Alexandra hive is drawing out the 2nd hive body and the queen is laying a great brood pattern up there - filling up the comb before they get the entire frame finished. Happy with their progress, I closed them up. No need to break the hive apart to check the lower box today.

Bees Hatching

I was surprised to find the bees in the Catherine hive had hardly drawn out any comb in their upper box even though it's been in place for three weeks. They haven't been taking much syrup either but they don't have anyplace to store it. Looking into the lower box, I was happy to find bees emerging right on schedule.

I began to notice how gentle these bees are acting, and didn't see eggs or larvae, and the bees were not chaining as I would pull up a frame. They're not acting 'queen-right'! Inspecting every frame, I found only spotty capped brood. No eggs. No larvae. And no Queen!

Supersedure Cell?

I did find a pair of empty swarm cells but Russian bees are known to have swarms cells handy that they never use. There was one supersedure cell that seems half built - or is it half dismantled? Hard to tell... I'll give the hive a couple of days to either cap the cell or finish removing it and that will tell me much.

Bees and Spotty Brood

This hive was progressing so well that I didn't bother looking for the queen since the last time I saw her when I put the 2nd hive body on three weeks ago. This has been a long enough period of time that they could have replaced her already but I didn't notice a virgin queen roaming around the hive even though they can be hard to spot. Thankfully, the other hive is coming along well. I just may have to move some brood over from the Alexandra hive so they may make a new queen if I am unable to find one already present.

Starting the hives so late in the year, and now this set back? Ugh! It's certainly going to increase the amount of 'Keep' in 'Beekeeping' to ensure the Catherine hive builds up strong for the coming winter!

Progress Report on the Second Week for New Hives

I anticipated that the Catherine hive would be far ahead of the Alexandra hive this week since they've had the second deep box on for seven days but they haven't begun to draw out the frames. They haven't been taking the syrup either, which tells me they're still storing it in the lower box.

The Alexandra hive has done a great job of drawing out eight frames but they've been sucking down the syrup like crazy to store it in the lower box. I added a second deep box today so plan to leave them alone for a couple weeks now to let them work on drawing comb without much interference.

We've had a week of off and on rain so the ants love the dry, dark space between the articulating cover and the inner covers. HINT: A good coating of cinnamon usually keeps them away as they don't like the strong scent. Leaving the articulating cover off during the day would encourage the ants to move along but I couldn't do that because of the rain. Now the hives smell like cinnamon buns and the bees don't mind it.