May 29, Another Split

From one hive on May 8 to four hives on May 29

Another beautiful West Michigan day  with temperatures in the eighties. Time to check for queen cells where we notched on May 20th.  This time only two of the frames we notched had viable queen cells. We removed one of these frames and placed it in a new deep hive body on a separate pallet. We also gave it two more frames of brood and a frame of honey. We placed five frames of new foundation in it making a total of nine frames. We reduced the entrance.
We left the other frame with queen cell in the original deep box that I had purchased from Al Haarsma.  This box also has frames of brood, a frame of honey and new foundation frames in it. Both of these boxes will have to be checked around June 17 to see if the new queen is laying.
We also checked on the hive with the old queen to see if they were drawing comb and if she was still laying. They were doing an awesome job drawing out comb, some with capped honey already. The queen is also continuing to do a great job as we saw eggs and larvae in many stages of development! We are still feeding this hive sugar syrup.

If all the new queens (three of them total) start laying, we will have four hives.

Close up of newly drawn comb full of honey, the upper is capped.

See how far the bees have drawn out the comb in just ten days!

                                                        

Look close or enlarge to see eggs (little white specks in middle of black cells) The queen is laying faster than they can draw out the comb.  Possibly royal jelly in the middle of the frame.