Crappy weather today for opening a hive, but it’s supposed to be heavy rain for the next 4 days or so and that’s too long to go just after splitting the hives to not check on them.

Hive 1 is a single deep with a frame feeder. Crappy weather kept all the foragers indoors so the box was packed with bees. No shortage of pollen or stored syrup. Too early for that much honey to be in there. Unable to find queen or any sign of queen activity. No brood left and no queen cells either. Come on, girls – get with it! Moved frame of brood from Hive 2 which was a mix of eggs, young larvae and sealed brood.

Hive 2 is a single deep with Frame feeder and is the other half of the Hive 1 split. Found the queen and copious amounts of pollen, stored honey, and brood. The queen is very young – about 2 thirds the size of a normal queen but obviously not intimidated by her diminutive stature. The brood pattern looked pretty solid.

Hive 3 is a single deep with a medium super on top. This hive has generous amounts of stored honey and pollen – so there is no feeder on it at present. There is no queen in this hive (she was discovered in Hive 4), but the bees have built and sealed a few queen cells, so things are coming along according to plan.

Hive 4 is the other half of the split that created Hive 3. I was able to find the queen easily in this one. She is a mature queen, large and solid orange – almost like a hornet. She really stands out amongst her smaller and much browner daughters. The brood nest is filled with eggs and brood in various stages. Pollen and honey stores look good. No cause to worry with this one right now.

I’m going to keep an eye on the queen cells. The opportunity may present itself to do a 2 or 3 frame split with a nuc or two if I can salvage some viable queen cells. We’ll see.