It was four weeks ago that I took the queen from hive #3 and put her and some young bees and brood into Olea's hive. They seem to be doing quite well, building comb and bringing in pollen. I stopped feeding them a few days ago.
Today I finally looked into #3 to see if there was a new queen. I would have liked to have seen her, but eggs or larvae would be proof enough.
24 days ago I put honey supers on both hives after removing the Apivar strips. Today, 4-5 frames in the super had capped honey and almost all the others had nectar and some capped cells. I added another super and did some checker boarding.
The top brood box was full of capped honey. This is the box with some foundationless frames so the comb is a bit irregularly shaped. I intend to leave all the honey in the deep boxes for the bees and only harvest from the supers.
Finally I reached the bottom box. Would the bees have made a new queen? Would she have successfully mated and now be laying?
The outside frame had honey. The next had pollen and honey. I thought the next would have brood, but no; lots of pollen, some honey, empty cells and one queen cup. Pay dirt on the next frame! No eggs but several frames with larvae. There were probably some eggs as well, but they are difficult for me to see. I looked at a few more frames and saw more larvae. I did not see the queen, but she is in there doing her job.
I put a drone frame in the bottom box and closed up.
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