Hive One is a full year old, and very busy. The queen has been laying very well. She was laying in each cell without skipping cells, and it appeared she was laying several per day. The 10 bottom brood box frames had lots of larva, and she had to be laying well to have so much in the bottom. I was pretty pleased to see this. This hive is the one that was knocked over in last June's storm and got wet. It had been sluggish all the rest of last year. I filled the feeder with sugar syrup since we were expecting poor weather (cold and rainy) for he next couple of days.
Hive Two is my jumbo package. I believe that two of my package bees actually merged into one hive. I guess they did not like their other queen. This was just a theory until I opened it up. Wow. was it busy. There were as many bees in here as in Hive One. Lots of new brood, and many new bees coming in the next week. That makes me excited for all the production I can expect earlier in the spring. At the rate this hive is perking along, I'll be ready for a shallow in about 2 weeks. Which I feel is early. I'll have to ask at the next bee meeting.
Hive Three is struggling. It has drawn out comb well. Yet only about 3 frames worth of comb. Yet, it' full of larva. It could be that some of the package bees did not stay with this hive. The population is lower than what was put into the hive. Yet they have enough that in a week or so when their new cells start hatching, we'll have a good bee population by mid June. The queen here is definitely working hard, she just doesn't have enough bees to build more comb for her to lay more eggs. Time should fix this problem. Fed them and moved along.
Hive Four is a gift from Paul Woodworth. I had lost a hive (which I now think merged with Hive two) so when he got a call about a swarm from someone wanting it removed, he brought it over. My assessment of swarms is that they are more aggressive bees. They are unsettled and seem to really PING the face mask more than the calm settled bees. They were in the box about a week before my inspection, I should have tried to get in there sooner. Weather kept me out. When I lifted the inner cover, they had drawn down from the top. Beautiful comb, but it couldn't stay on the cover, so I had to cut it out. I tried to attach to some empty frames for them, but I'm not sure they were happy with me. I pulled their original tree branch out and filled the box with frames. This hive is strong, has many bees, and they way they all stayed together, I believe the queen is in there, although I did not see her. I will check it again soon to ensure she is laying.
