Queen Inspection

Looked at all the hives this morning.  I worked up the field, so here is what I found in each hive.

Hive 2 - Saw the blue marked queen, 6 frames of brood, 3 of stores and one of foundation not yet drawn.  I moved this frame in one from the edge, to encourage the bees to draw it out.  Will probably need a super next week.

Hive 4 - This is the two small colonies that were combined.  they have centred on the 2 left hand frames, they have 4 frames of stores and 2 frames not drawn.  There were eggs, larvae and capped brood, so there is a queen but this colony is still weak.

Hive 1 - This is the queenless colony.  They were a bit fractious again today.  The queen cell has still not hatched, so must be a dud.  I took a frame with 3 queen cells from hive 5 and put it in here.

Hive 3 - This colony is not viable, there are a few bees on 3 frames, but no brood or queen.

Hive 5 - The brood box is full.  There is no more room for the queen to lay.  The bees have not started on the super, but have raised 8 queen cells.  3 of these were transfered to hive 1.  4 queen cells were removed, but I did leave the best looking one just in case there is no queen in this hive.  I hope she is still here and just gone off lay, because they are nice little dark bees.