Well, that wasn't in the script!

So, I've had problems getting the girls to build where I want them to.  Typical females, they think they know (and they probably do know) best and were building new honeycomb kind of between frames of foundation, not on it.  So to encourage them I painted the frames of foundation with some beeswax and added these to the hive.

When I looked in the parent hive today I saw that some honey storage has begun in the top built out supers, but none of it is capped. This is encouraging, I thought.  Below these two built-out supers there are two supers, which have not been built-out.  I found no activity in the topmost of these supers, but some building has been going on the lower super. "Super" I thought! And was (and am) really pleased that, finally, some new building seems to be underway.

But with beekeeping, and I am learning there always seems to be a but, there is a catch, or at least some kind of cloud to every silver lining.  On the one hand, great news - the bees are building out honeycomb in the supers.  But, not so great news, the queen went and took a look to see what her spawn had been doing and was so pleased that she decided to start laying eggs! So I have eggs in at least two, possibly three frames in one super!  I'm sure this isn't the end of the world, and I'd much rather they build out the foundation and lay in it, than not build it out at all. I guess the solution to all this is to make sure the queen is in one of the bottom hive bodies (which she was today) and then insert the queen excluder below the supers.  Then, after give it 21 days, and the new bees will have emerged, and the cells that were formed for the new bees can then be used for honey storage.  This is my theory and I have yet to check it out with others.  I hope they see things the same way as me!  Oh, and no, I did not put in the queen excluder yet.  I thought I would wait a week to see what building happens in the super with no building going on first.  Either way it will go on before we go on vacation at the beginning of June.

I also looked in the new "Daughter" hive. I found the queen, and she is busy laying in the bottom hive box, but nobody wants to, or seems interested in, building out the top hive box! What is it with 'plasticell' frames this year? Last year they loved it! Perhaps this is the difference between package bees who really want to build a home and a divided colony who seem pretty ambivalent - who can tell. Anyway, there is a lot of pollen and honey stored in a couple of the frames and I decided to move this to the top box in the hope this will get the girls to start a bit of building.  I probably should have moved eggs and larvae, but still, this is what I did.

I better talk to Eugene!