The Russian/Italian Queen Reigns

“Opportunities don’t happen, you create them.” – Chris Grosser

Our Russian queen has not only made it out of her queen cage and won the battle between the queens, but she has proven herself to be a good egg layer.  And, since we took a frame of brood from hive 04 two weeks ago and put it in hive 02, the population in hive 02 has already grown.  New bees have emerged and the hive seems unified.   Things are looking up in hive 02!

Below is a photo of our new hive 02 Russian/Italian hybrid queen sitting alongside a newly hatched bee.  The bee is not her offspring, but neither will ever know. 

The newly hatched bee to the left of the queen is about half her size.

In this photo below from hive 02, you can make out the tiny eggs from our new hybrid queen.  Beekeeping books will explain that the new eggs look like tiny rice.  Really, they are so tiny, they can be difficult to see at all.

The white "fog" inside these cells is actually the reflection from the flash of the camera.
Look hard to see a very tiny white speck in the middle or just outside the reflection.  These are the eggs.
(Click on photo to enlarge).

We removed the top deep hive chamber from hive 02 where we had extra sugar water feeders, so that now the bees can focus their efforts on drawing comb on several frames in the lower deep hive which are still empty.  Mark screened up the opening on the inner cover to keep wax moths from entering.  We continue to use the oil-filled small hive beetle trap on the bottom board to keep the hive beetle population in check.  The bees have plenty of sugar water in the frame feeders for their honey production.  All of these efforts seem to be working at getting hive 02 back into shape.  The operative word here is work.  Hive 02 has been a lot of work since its installation.

Hive 04 is doing great, as usual.  These worker bees never stop.  The first thing we noticed when we approached the hive was that at least fifty bees were cleaning the bottom front landing board.  They moved back and forth from front to back, about an inch forward then an inch back, using their front “feet” and mouth parts to scrape dirt from the board.  A bit later, when the sun was beaming on the front of the hive and heating it up, and the bees began to use their wings in unison to ventilate the hive.  We had read about this, and to see it was entertaining.    

The bees face into the hive, raise their bodies high, and flap their wings at a very fast pace.
Working together, the bees create good ventilation throughout the hive.

We added two gallons of sugar water to the empty frame feeders in hive 04.  We will give the bees "alone time" for about three or four weeks and return to check on our two hives.