Olea's hive has survived and seems to be doing well. I have seen lots of pollen coming into the hive. Yesterday I took off the entrance reducer and today I inspected to bar #6 (there are currently 17 bars).
The two combs I broke a couple of months age have been rebuilt and there is unripe honey in one.
Bar 11 had some capped drone brood and a few larvae. Honey until bars 7-9 where there was capped brood. The pattern was ok, but a little spotty. I saw no pollen on those bars, but there was a lot on #6. I saw the queen on 8, but did not see here again when reassembling the hive. The hive has not yet started the spring build-up. I saw no drones walking around. About a week ago I saw a drone with deformed wings at the entrance. This is cause for some worry, but, as I mentioned, the hive looks pretty good. Any mites there will get diluted when the build-up starts.
I pick up the new bees April 8 in Orland. Anyone is welcome to come along; there will be speakers and demos.
Because Olea's survived, I would like to continue the line. One way is to make a split with the shook swarm method. The other, and maybe easier, is to wait for them to swarm and then capture the swarm. I will probably do the latter, but I may get ambitious.
