Rumors

Heard from a coworker that a hivekeeper-friend in St Paul is reporting similar swarming problems.

All Hail the Queen

90s, humid, sporadic rain.

New queen cleanly hatched out of Edingburgh, the rest of the frames are mostly capped honey (scraped one open by accident during inspection) and past brood cells rapidly being filled. Not sure if new queen will be able to hatch much brood before fall.

London still has eggs, and a queen. Lots of activity but no comb in supers.

Absconded!

Steamy, high 80's.

Edinburgh swarmed today; lost about half the hive. Opened the hive to find five swarm cells and a supercedure cell. No queen, some capped brood but no eggs. Destroyed the swarm cells, left the supersedure cell to allow the a new queen to start over. Will check next week, will attempt to requeen if there are no eggs soon.

Swapped honey supers over to London, who is still producing eggs and capped brood. Now has 7/10 frames filled in the top deep.

More activity in both hives. London up from 5 frames to around 6.5... still going to wait a week to dump on their super. Edinburgh bees moving about their supers, but no foundation built yet.

Strange Beehavior

Bees absolutely insane today. Steady columns of them rising from and circling the hive from 10:30 to around 11. My amateur (and likely ignorant and wrong) guess would be a recent brood doing their orientation flights.

Warm, 80's, humid, chance of rain today.

Swarming with Life

High 70's, still rather humid, sunny.

Finally found one of the bee hotspots; a solid clump of Butterflyweed that has also attracted its share of native bees as well as Monarchs and Red Admirals. Things in the hives pretty much the same. Briefly checked London to see if it was ready for deeps; it is still about a frame and a half short. Plenty of egg production. Edingburgh has not begun drawing out its supers yet.

Humid, 80's, periodic rain.

Edinburgh has drawn out almost 9 of 10 frames in their top box, meaning it's time to super up for honey production. London is a bit behind, with only around 4 frames drawn out, but looks just as healthy. Both have a good amount of healthy eggs and larvae in their top boxes. Added new grease patties today.