It's a little mad out there!

I went in to check on the bees in Diane's yard today (June 23). There was a Queen Cell in there a couple of weeks ago (9 June) that I left to develop. It's 2 weeks since, so there should have been more brood and eggs in the hive if I was lucky!

I'm wasn't sure if the hive had previously swarmed but there were still loads of bees in the hive, flying in front of it and also perched on the landing board. There was also tons of honey in the supers. So I'm still jot sure!  The 4 supers I had on the hive are full, so I scraped around and  threw on a fifth of just undrawn foundation. I'm not sure I've ever had any hive with this amount of supers before!!! 

So the inspection... I got down to the deeps and pulled a couple of frames from the top one.  I found lots of capped brood on several frames, and then loads of very young larvae and eggs on another two.  So I clearly have a Queen. Whether it's the old one or a new one I don't know as I didn't see her. But the hive is certainly vital!

I don't think I'll do another inspection until after the harvest on July 6.