Now there are two!!!

If you look closely in this picture you can see the queen with her red dot. This is the Saskatraz queen in the blue Long Hive. I installed the nuc on 5-18-18, released the queen on 5-19-18 and this is 5-23-18 and she is busy at work and they had filled the frame they were working on when I installed them with comb and were covering two more frames than they were just five days before! Go girls! I removed the screen which was covering the entrance because they seemed to be trying to clear out some debris and it was hindering them, so they were using the upper entrances. Later I noticed they were using the entrance normally after I removed the screen. They were bringing in pollen and everyone seemed happy.

This is the nuc I installed today, 5-23-18. It came from Mary Bouma in Hopkins, MI. The queen is an overwintered queen. She is also going to sell me a nuc in a month with a daughter queen from this or one of her other overwintered queens. I did see the queen. She is a nice big Italian lady. I went ahead and put a second box on top, just in case life gets busy and I don't get over there soon enough to put one on. The worst that can happen is they will chimney up a little. That isn't the worst thing in the world, and it gives me some cushion if I get busy.

I am hoping to take a total of three frames of brood from these two hives in a month and buy another queen to put with them. That and the other nuc coming from Mary Bouma will make four. I will have three young queens and one overwintered queen. Two will be local queens raised from local stock, two will be purchased queens from Oliveraz apiaries. I will have two long hives and two vertical hives, so it will be a good experiment. Let's hope this year we have honey, healthy bees and overwintering success!