Two for One or One for Two

Well, I'm not sure which is which . . . but last Wednesday I checked Hive #2.  I thought they might need a super and just to see what was going on inside the hive.  This is the first day we've had in a long time that was warm (above 50 degrees).

So there were two supers and a deep.  I took off the two supers and looked in the deep - guess what!  A queen - yes, there she was so I put the frame back in the deep and put the first super on and checked that super.  Everything looked okay and then I put the top super back on the hive and checked the frames on that super.  Well, lo and behold, there was another queen!  

Inside 2017 Hive

I put everything back together and thought about what I needed to do - this gave the bees times to settle down and when I took the super off to move, I didn't smoke the bees.  I wanted as many bees in the top super as possible. I checked to make sure there was a queen in the super after moving and put a jar of sugar water on the hive.  


0318 Hive

Fast forward to today and the bees are doing fine in both hives.  Feeding both hives and they are bringing in pollen - red, orange, yellow.   

The package bees were delayed a couple of weeks.  Should get them around income tax time. I feel very fortunate or lucky that I found both queens.  So with the packages, I'll have four hives.  Good way to start the new beekeeping year.