a few days later

Ok-  so it's been a few days and I haven't put anything out here.  Well nothing much has changed except we're receiving some rain - 1.5 inches in less than 24 hours.  I've peaked into the tops of the hives and they are still working along.  It seems to be happening more slowly in the packages but as long as their still working (drawing out, pollen gathering, and egg laying) I guess I'm fine with that.

I did a top hive inspection yesterday, between the rain drops and found the following -

H1 - they are still working on the top left-hand side of the 4-frame nuc box more than the right-hand side.  Not sure why, but who knows.  By working more, I mean that all 4 frames have been almost drawn out and some egg laying has been done.  I noticed a strange bee yesterday in here and wonder if it was the queen or not but not sure.  It was half-again as large as a drone and almost 3/4" long.  I didn't get much change to inspect it as it quickly disappeared but the other bees didn't seem to bother it and just smelled and went along with what they 'normally' do.  It didn't have the full abdomen and look like a queen - but since this hive is differently colored - maybe that was her.  If so, it's the first time in a month that i've seen her - and she's definitely a hybrid of some type.

H2 - they still seem to be struggling with drawing out all 4 frames but have approx 2.5 drawn out and some honey/pollen stored in them.  I swapped around an un-drawn from the right with one on the left to try and encourage them some more.

H3 (nuc box) is starting to get allot of activity up there.  They've drawn out most of their frames and have a lot of good brood patterns and pollen/honey stored up there.

I've been using, for about 2 weeks now, a mixture of HBH (honey bee healthy) for several reasons but mostly to get them to drawn out the remaining new foundation so there will be more room for pollen/honey/brood.  I think that this has been working because I have all 3 hives consume most of the quarts within about 4 days.  H1 and H2 have consumed the most so far with H3 having about 2 inches left whenever I've topped them (all) off.

I checked on them late yesterday and noticed something strange.  On H3 - there were a lot of bees just 'hanging out' and cooling themselves along their front porch.  With 85+ temperature, 75+ humidity, and all the rain - I can't blame them.  I'll attach the photo so you can see.

Hopefully the weather will dry out over the weekend and I can do another 'full' inspection of all 3 hives so I can find the black queen as well as check on the bottom deep brood boxes.  If they haven't filled up all them, I might do a box rotation. 

Here's the 'chillin' bees -