Midweek, I decided to buy queens for two of my hives that have gone queen-less  Two weeks with no eggs or larva was my inspiration. I had added a frame with eggs and a queen cup or two into one of them when I first discovered the issue but lost my nerve  when that didn’t appear to be working. The other hive caught me off guard so I had not added any eggs or queen cells to it. As can be the case, this week’s queen shipment was  delayed so I was not able to bail my hives out with expensive purchased queens.

Today I looked into the one hive that had received queen cups and found that I had been too impatient in that now there is eggs and hopefully things are coming back into balance. The other hive is completely without evidence of a queen so I opened a strong hive, pulled a frame and there were four ripe queen cells. A quick frame swap and we shall see. The lesson I lean once again is not to underestimate the ability of the bees to resolve their problems. All it takes is a little faith on my part and a frame from a sister hive.

Now I can worry about the strong hive that had queen cells. Time for a split!