I decided to name my Q1 Queen Mother, Sally. All of the grafted queen larvae produced Sally 2 queens. I’m about 80% sure Sally swarmed shortly thereafter, so hive 1 now also has a Sally 2a. I am still quite happy with Sally 2a in hive 1. I also have another Sally 2b in hive 3 which is doing pretty well. I won’t do a full inspection for another couple of weeks.

The package I bought had a Georgian queen I’ll call Georgia and was installed into hive 2. Georgia swarmed, was caught, and has made her way into hive 5 as back-up. Hive 2, therefore, made a new daughter queen, Georgia 2. This hive is doing well, but I might still want to requeen before winter. Hive 4 was the swarm, but after swapping queens, now has another Sally 2c.

Hive 1: Sally 2a
Hive 2: Georgia 2a
Hive 3: Sally 2b
Hive 4: Sally 2c
Hive 5: Georgia (backup queen currently in a cardboard NUC box)

[Show slideshow]

This weekend, we also set up the NUCs for Q3. There were grafted last Sunday (one week ago), and will likely emerge this Wed or Thu. Today we harvested the queen cells (from George and Lisa). I ended up with two George 2 queens. I set up the NUCs next to each other, but did not completely block the entrance to the empty NUC. It was being robbed  badly by this evening when I went to install the George 2 cells. I decided to move the NUC being robbed about 80 feet away (back to the original location) in hopes that the robbers would just stay or relocate, but not continue to rob. I also installed the frame of brood from Mel with some bees into this NUC. I hope the two groups of bees can get along. I now have Hives 6 and 7 raising the new George queens.

Hive 6: George 2a
Hive 7: George 2b (in Area 2)