Happy Fourth of July!

I looked in on the hives today. Both had finished off their syrup buckets.

I found the Italian queen in the lower box. She is doing great! Both boxes have frames of brood as well as uncapped larvae and eggs and frames of nectar and pollen. I added another box to the hive with a couple of frames of honey from last year's hives for food. I will probably still put a bucket of syrup on top since we will be coming up on the summer dearth soon and if the rainy weather returns I want the hive to keep building.

I did not find the hybrid (marked) queen today, but I did see evidence that she is in there somewhere. Frames with eggs, uncapped larvae and capped brood show she is in there somewhere. It's possible she walked between frames while I was watching a couple of baby bees starting to emerge on one of the frames. She isn't doing as well as the other queen, but she has had to deal with too many drones from the dud queen. As long as there are still eggs and the hive continues to get stronger I guess that's a win. I added a box to the hive although they probably don't need it yet. I also added a few frames of honey from last year. My hope is if they have enough food they will concentrate on expanding the population. I will also put another bucket of syrup on top with the second dose of fumagillin to make sure nosema is not a problem.

Since I'm going out of town for a week or so I want to make sure things are in order before I go. I'll be checking them again, but I wanted to get most of the work out of the way today since I don't know what the weather will be:)