The queen has arrived

Friday July 1st was a beautiful sunny Canada day and after a day of picking strawberries on Westham Island I was looking forward to checking  into the hives and finding out if there was new queen on the scene.

Onward with the inspections! My intention was to add a frame of eggs from hive #2 to the still possibly queenless hive.  I was feeling a little uneasy on having to have both hives open to master the frame switch.   Hive # 2's inspection consisted of lots of frames of capped brood, larvae and fresh eggs. The brood cluster was up higher and there was nectar and pollen on the bottom of the lower boxes frames. Very different than the hive #1 which had brood almost all the way to the bottom of the frames. Hive #2 is using a slatted bottom board and hive #1 uses a screen bottom board. I took a frame of eggs and moved it to the top box in case they would be needed. No pictures as I was solo and although handling the frames is feeling better, taking photos isn't easy with only 2 hands. Here is a picture of a bee in front of Hive #1

[caption id="attachment_350" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="bee july 4"][/caption] Hive # 1 was busy and the drone population seemed to be a bit lower than last week, but they could have all been out carousing,  looking for that special queen. The lower box frames were pretty much empty cells with a bit of nectar and pollen.  It wasn't looking good, no eggs at all on any of the frames.  The upper box had frames that were being filled with a lot of nectar and pollen.  Originally when I hived the swarm one frame of eggs from hive #2 was added and that frame was capped and some bees were emerging. And then there it was! on the next frame,  fresh eggs in the cells!  The hive was once again queen right. I wrapped up the inspection and felt relief knowing the bees got it right once again. Steve