I installed two packages on March 30 with clipped and marked queens on drawn foundation that had some pollen, honey and empty cells. Both queens released after 3 days. Saw a small patch of brood in hive 1 but then laying stopped. There were also supercedure cells. No evidence of eggs/brood even after 3 weeks for hive#2. Both hives rather nasty.
Installed new queens from Vermont on April 26th; cut out supercedure cells from hive 1 a few days before installation. Queen installation with push-in cages over empty comb. No evidence of any eggs or brood upon installation.
May 1 (Queen +5)Hive #1-- no live queen or dead body in cage--cage full of about 10-20 bees. Searched the frames and found larvae and eggs. good so far.. wasnt able to find queen but figured at the time that if she is laying i dont really care.
Hive#2- push in cage intact - handful of bees on outside of cage. No eggs laid within cage. Let queen out-- np and went to search other frames...oops.. saw larvae and eggs like Hive#1 but not as many. one or two double eggs but that was rare....was finishing my inspection of the last frame when i saw my released queen again-- scurrying around--bees kind of ignoring her. The push in cage was on the edge of the bee cluster and the bees were clustered around the end frames.-- Didnt see any other queen except the one in #2. Bees in both hives more calm.
May 10 (Queen+14) So per my previous posts went back into hive after 10 days
both hives were the same-- calm bees (didnt use smoke), couldnt find the queens. Tight brood pattern. Saw eggs up through capped brood but....
it seemed to me that a lot (50%! ) of brood was drones! This was more prevalent i think in the older brood. Each hive with brood about the size of 1-2 hands on 4 frame sides. To me much of it seemed to be larger/domey than typical worker brood. The odd thing is that there were more flatter capped brood on the outside edges of the laying pattern.
Seems odd i would have this on BOTH hives. also find it hard to believe that it could be a worker laying because i did not see that many double layings and the pattern seemed tight 10 days ago and continues to be tight amongst all the brood. ie. age of brood is the same in an area
No supercedure cells.
May 15th (Queen +20)Went in about midday- not many drones in hives but probably off somewhere. Didn’t see queen in either hive. Not seeing as much brood as I’d like. Plenty of stores. Almost think cluster is a bit honey bound since the nectar is restricting eggs laying space. So since bees occupying first 4 frames I shifted the frames down one toward the middle and put drawn comb on the end
Saw eggs in hive #1, fewer in #2. I am a bit confused about both these hives.
1) would have expected to see more brood by this time
2) lots of “Kix” brood but often see mixed pattern (see photo #1 with drone brood on upper right and normal brood on left.
3) Single eggs in middle of cells, no double eggs, eggs being laid on cells not even drawn out (on an aside bees not really drawing comb but I figured its Spring and I shouldn’t have to feed them but AM worried they wont draw out comb where eggs laid).
4) Not many drones observed but they could be out mating.
Idk seems worker hive? But don’t understand the mix of capped brood. Don’t have spare hives to add frames of brood.
Advice?
[img=http://s20.postimg.org/m731v4ujt/May_2013_392.jpg][img=http://s20.postimg.org/udv1mpkmh/May_2013_393.jpg][img=http://s20.postimg.org/5n5d8w59l/May_2013_395.jpg]comb not drawn out
[img=http://s20.postimg.org/lmsm66qp5/May_2013_396.jpg][img=http://s20.postimg.org/m0ty5sasp/May_2013_397.jpg]guess i should have increased the resolution of my images-- sorry that yo cant zoom in but i hope you get the idea