Weekly Check 7/15/2012

The Happy and Not-So-Happy hives are proceeding as expected. They don't seem to need another box yet. The nuc hive has eggs, larvae and capped brood so even if I can't spot the queen, there must be one in there somewhere. I don't know if it's the heat or just that I get spooked by the number of bees on a frame, but I can't seem to identify any of the queens now. I know I have seen a queen in each hive at one time or another, but I can't seem to do it consistently. I don't even know if it is really worth the trouble to disturb the hives just so I can practice finding the queen, and those boxes are really heavy when they are full! I'm afraid I'll do more damage and squash more bees if I keep digging around. I'm going to try just taking a peek into the top and adding boxes if they need it and see if leaving them alone will work out OK. The nuc hive has just about filled its 2 boxes, but not expanded into the top box yet. I'm not sure why. It's interesting to try and figure out why these 3 hives are all so different.