OBSERVATION HIVE REPORT by beekeeper Grandpa Jack

Workers at the fair had fun discussing the goings on in the club's observation hive that had been stocked by Grandpa Jack.  Here is his report about the hive after he took it back to his apiary.

The ECWBA observation hive has been at the Green Lake County fair since Thursday and many have enjoyed watching the new hatch come out of their cells.  While members and fair goers were watching through the looking glass of the observation hive, what was going on in the inside ?

Sunday was the last day of the fair and the hive made the trip back to the original hive of beekeeper Jack's.  The hive was stocked with two  frames of capped brood and one frame of honey-nectar-pollen and a shake of a frame of bees for added population.

We thought we might of gotten the queen in the lower box, since from the sound of the hive that the bees came from, indicated that they were not happy with the frames that were removed.  Also we found newly laid eggs on the frame that was placed in the observation panel.  Beekeeper Fred is one of our resident queen raiser's, and spotted  the eggs while looking at the frame with a flash light.

Sunday, the last fair day, it was noted that there were queen cells started at the bottom of the observation frame. 

The bottom line of this story is - there was no queen in the observation hive.   

What do bees do when they don't have a queen and they have all the ingredients to make one ? 

On the observation frame by the window, there were four queen cells with larva and royal jelly.  On the frame that  had brood,  that was located in the body of the hive, there were six more queen cells.  All the cells had larva that was floating in royal jelly.  

The decision was made at the fair to not make splits this late in the season.  The queen cells were destroyed since the original hive has been re-queened and has a strong working queen.