I inspected #3 yesterday. It looks like it's doing well with reasonable honey stores in the brood boxes and lots of brood. I didn't see the queen, though. I observed that the drones were concentrated on the outer frames just as they had been in #2. I tried to find reference to this online and in my books to no avail. I can speculate regarding this behavior, and I do, but it would be nice to have a more authoritative explanation. My theory is that the workers do not want them around the "work" areas and chase them off to the sides. Soon, the workers will be chasing them out of the hive altogether.
The bees in hive were testy, pinging me frequently (that is, bumping into my veil) and buzzing about my face. One guard started after me as soon as I took the top off! To stop the annoyance, I got the spray bottle of my honey-bee-healthy and spritzed the buzzing girls. Then I got the smoker going and smoked everyone. Then I just did my best to ignore them.
There are several reasons why a colony is testy; no queen, no honey flow, bad weather, robbers, etc. I seem to remember that this colony has been testy in the past, so I'm a bit worried that it might be this hive's personality. In the future, I will keep the smoker handy and note their behavior. If it continues to be aggressive, I will re-queen.
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