It's supposed to rain for the next 5 days so I thought I should do my inspection today. I didn't specifically look for queens so naturally I didn't see any.
I started with the Not-So-Happy hive. It is still working on the bottom medium hive box. There is brood in the middle 4 frames and honey in a couple of frames to either side, but they have not reached the end frames yet. The pattern of brood etc. is nice, but this hive seems to be quite slow to develop, and I don't think I'll be putting another box on top for another week or so. The syrup consumption is slower as well. Maybe I should be re-queening this hive? I'll have to read up on this, but I don't think I need to do anything in a hurry.
I then looked at the Happy hive. It still has not completely finished the bottom box. It is working on frames 1 and 9, but not yet 10. There is brood and honey in the bottom box. The next box up has about 3 frames under development with brood and honey so it is pretty much equivalent to one complete box and starting on the second box. Much quicker performance than the other package hive, but I've seen some evidence of mites in this hive. One of the little dead carcasses that were dumped on the "doorstep" was a larva with a mite clearly visible, and I've seen a few bees with misshapen wings that indicate viruses brought on by mites. I'm going to have to try something to knock down mites in this hive, but overall it appears to be thriving.
Lastly I looked in on the nuc. Each medium nuc box came with 5 frames "under development" and those frames are fully filled in. The top box has another frame under construction, but 2 frames on each side available for further expansion. The bottom box has expansion space in frames 1, 9 and 10, and this hive seems to be thriving. Hopefully I'll be putting a 3rd box on top by the end of June.
Here's hoping the weather man is wrong so the bees can bring in more nectar, and the farmers can put up some hay!
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