New OTS Queen

I know I wasn't going to check in on the hives till July 24th, but I was anxious to see what was going on, so I did. In hive C, I found a beautiful OTS Queen already laying eggs! OTS stands for On The Spot Queen rearing by Mel Disselkoen. If you are interested in learning more about this, visit Mel's website at www.mdasplitter.com  Sorry there are no pictures of the queen, she was too shy and nervous. Found frames with eggs, no larva, so she just started laying.  Hive A and E had no evidence of a laying queen yet, so I did not look for them. I will check them next week.  Hive B and D, both OTS queens are laying well with a nice brood pattern, both of these hives were ready for supers. Each of these had all the frames almost completely drawn out, so a 2nd deep was placed with new waxed frames and a frame taken from the bottom box and placed in the middle.

Hive C is facing you, this is the one with new OTS queen, just started laying. Hive B is to the right (has dark medium super on bottom, part of the original hive I bought back in May), the entrance is on the opposite side. Hive A is behind Hive C and will need to be checked next week for a laying queen.

Hive D with OTS queen. Placed 2nd deep on tonight. The top box is Hive E above a Snelgrove board. This hive  is able to gather warmth from the lower hive, but the Snelgrove board is double screened so they are unable to interact. The Snelgrove board is unique in that it has an entrance on each side that you can keep open or closed. Currently on hive E all the entrances are closed except for the back one.  I will check Hive E next week for laying queen.