Weekend Status

I checked the hives this past weekend.
I did not see the hybrid queen, but did see signs of her presence. The 2 boxes are still not full, but there was some started queen cups so I decided maybe the queen is waiting for more room (?) . Additionally I looked up the difference between Italian and hybrid Russian queens and there are differences so this could be just the way this variety of queen works. She is working maybe 4 frames in each of the 2 boxes. I put another bucket of syrup on top and added some pollen substitute in the hopes that will support the hive putting in more winter stores.
I did see the Italian queen. The third box was almost full of honey. No sign of queen cups, but to avoid any crowding I added a fourth box to the hive. She is working about 6 frames in each box. The bottom box has lots of pollen. This hive looks great. If they both looked this good, I would not be worried. Scratch that. I would be worrying about something else:)
We have had a lot of rain the last few days so things have been quiet around the hives.
I am looking forward to checking on them this weekend to see if anything has changed. I am going to look more carefully for the hybrid queen since I am still worried about that hive.