I was inspecting to see how much honey I might have to harvest this year, and when I looked into hive 4 and pulled the second frame in the top of three medium boxes this is what I found.

Sally 2 doing fine

Hive 4 queen

This is Sally 2 from the Q1 rearing. There was so little activity at the entrance, that I really would not have been surprised to find that Sally was gone. Instead I found a moderate number of happy bees storing honey in the top of the three brood boxes. I will do a better inspection later to see how the brood pattern looks, but for now I think things are doing well and I will hope that this hive can make it through the winter.

I didn’t pull any frames for extraction, and at the rate they are storing honey, I think this should be fine with a little feeding in the fall.