Bee buddy and Russians

Kathy had told me about Aram, a new bee keeper who has hives not far from me on Mesa Grande Road. He had earlier offered to let me have a brood frame from his hive, but we weren't able to coordinate schedules. I did get out to see his hives today. (His face is blurred because the lens was smudged.) Aram works with furniture and he built his hives himself. They are beautifully joined with rounded corners. Note the paint work. the hand-holds are also painted to match the entrance ramps. The hives are at his parents' house where he grew up. They're in an former goat pen. I helped him rearrange the order of the hive boxes. You can see the green hive has two deeps on the bottom and a shallow on top while the red hive has the shallow super in the middle. Aram wanted to rearrange the green hive, but we couldn't because there was too much brood in the middle box. He is planning to get honey this year. His colony population is much larger than mine, perhaps because he started with nucs and/or because of my lost queen. I was able to finally see some eggs in Aram's hive.

In my hive today, I saw that nearly all my bees were Russians. I had ordered a package of Russians, but there a lot of Italians mixed in with them. But now, the new bees hatching are from my queen and the original bees have died. Pictured above are an Italian on the left and a Russian on the right. I suppose that most of the bees on the flowers in my yard are from some other hive since they are mostly Italians.
My colony is growing. There were three frames of brood in the super. Saw the queen and some waggle dancing. I moved the transplanted frame all the way to the edge. I'll email Kathy to see if she wants to trade back; I hope so.