One week after the merge...

Boardman feeder and newspaper bits

The bees have been quite busy all week, and have been dragging out newspaper bits, just as Joe promised they would. They have been consuming a full mason jar of sugar water a day--so Ted has taken to buying sugar in bulk to keep up. The weather has also continued to be too hot (for myself and the bees), near 90 every day, so there has been a lot of bearding outside the hive.

I opened up the hive this morning to see how things were doing since the merge. Upstairs there is still plenty of capped drone brood waiting to emerge (they take 24 days to develop from an egg), and evidence of new comb. Downstairs, there was worker brood on the wooden frames from Joe, and larvae. I didn’t see any eggs, or young brood, which was a little disappointing, but Joe says to give the new queen a bit more time to get settled and to let the workers generate more good comb for her to lay in.  I will wait at least a week, or perhaps two, before the next inspection and keep my fingers crossed for new Carnolian eggs.

Carnolian worker brood and larvae on the wooden frames from Joe