Still virgin queen...hopefully

New Hive
I'd left the feeder empty for a week or so to deter them from drawing comb up in it. That worked fairly well but unfortunately attracted some ants and some sort of small white worm (maggot maybe...hopefully not SHB). I cleaned those out and added simple syrup. The rest of the hive looks good with 3-4 frames drawn out and good egg production. I was able to find the queen this time...first queen I've found in months. I added a pollen patty, a SHB liquid trap and a SHB fabric trap.
Old Hive
Soooo much honey. Soooo many bees. No brood so I'm hoping I still have a replacement queen after the swarm and she's just unmated. She "should" be mated by next week...fingers crossed. The top super I added last week didn't have much comb drawn out. The 2 checkerboarded boxes below that were full of honey and bees. The bees drew out the empty frames between the old frames and filled the old frames. Sooo much honey. The boxes were crazy heavy. I'm glad I just bought the extractor. The brood box was full bees, honey and nectar but no brood. I closed that up fairly quickly for fear of killing the new queen. When I put everything back together, I rotated the empty super down to the bottom so they'll hopefully fill it in.
If I don't see eggs next week it's probably time to find a new queen or maybe pull a frame of eggs from the new hive.
May 7, 2024