Checking up on the splits

On May 1st 2024, I looked at the three hives from the outside. The "mother" hive was very active, as it has been all along. The long blue hive suddenly had a lot of activity, a whole bunch of bees coming out of the entrance and orienting on the hive. I calculated that was three weeks from the initial split, and perhaps the capped brood had emerged or the bulk of the bees had reached foraging age and were heading out on their first flight. The vertical hive was a different story. A chipmunk sat on the entrance just staring at me. I realized no chipmunk would just sit on a hive entrance if that hive was full of bees. So I guessed that the split in that hive did not take.

On May 8th, 2024, I decided to look inside the hives and see if my theories were correct. As I though, the vertical hive was empty. The chipmunk had obviously been in there. There was a nut shell and a lot of chewed up wax, but no evidence of bees or brood. I assume they just went back to the mother hive. I opened the long blue hive and saw what seemed to be a queen-right hive, bees working busily, ignoring me and pollen coming in. I closed that hive without looking further because I want to do that on the field day on May 18th. I then opened the long tan hive "mother" hive. I removed three brood frames with all ages and stages of brood. I am quite sure there were eggs and young brood, but I did not notch any cells. I checked for the queen and did not find her on those frames. I placed them in the center of the deep on the vertical hive and replaced the frames in the long tan hive with empty brood frames from the vertical hive. I took those frames from the back of the brood nest in the tan hive.

I have been observing from the outside since that day. Today is May 14th. I see a reasonable amount of activity on the vertical hive. We will see if it looks good on Saturday during the field day. The long blue hive seems to have less activity than I would expect to see, but again, we will see on Saturday. The tan hive has an extreme amount of activity. I will wait for the field day to figure out if everything is as it should be or not.