May 31: Last Ditch Effort

Despite it being quite windy today (and in the 80s), I decided to check on the Italians. I gave the queen a week to perform and hoped to see eggs. Well, I didn't. But I did see the queen! She was very noticeable on the frame: much lighter in color.

I had to be very careful to not accidentally crush her or knock her off onto the ground. There were some tense moments, as I waited for her to jump off the removed frame into the space between a couple other frames still in the hive box. Then I carefully replaced the frame.

When I removed the next frame, somehow she had made it onto that one! And again, with only two hands, I had to wait it out for her to scurry off the frame and back into the hive box. So, quite a dilemma: the Italian queen is alive but has not laid eggs. Is she infertile? Or just late getting started?

With my smoker still smoking, I opened the Russian hive and the top box was a thing of beauty. All the frames are drawn out, and the first frame I pulled out was full of larvae, not capped. I made the impulsive decision to remove a frame of brood from the Russians and place it in the Italian colony, so they can raise some new babies to replace the dying adults (the picture to the right which I found on the internet shows what the larvae look like). It now occurs to me that I probably should have also moved Russian eggs to the Italians, in case they need to raise a new queen.

Top picture shows where I added the new frame in the Russian hive box to replace the one that I removed.