Melissa - the Fifth Hive

Nuc #3 has been doing very well.  Her 10 frame deep box is filled with bees, brood, & honey.  She has more bees and stores than Heléna.  Which tells me she should be in a full hive.  So today i put a second Deep box on Nuc #3 along with 10 foundationless frames and a Hive Top Feeder topped off with a gallon of 1:1 syrup.

This Nuc's ability to draw comb is quite good.  The bees seem preoccupied with making comb since I'm always scraping extra off the inner cover.  I don't doubt she'll have the new box nearly all drawn out by July.  Which will give her a double Deeps worth of bees going into Winter.

If she's going to be a full hive she needs a name.  We found out that in Greek, honey bee is 'Melissa'.  So that's her new name now.  Her parent hive belongs to the Neighbor.  It's name is Beatrix, after the 20th century queen.  The neighbor also made a split from the parent hive at the same time.  It also has become a full hive.  Lots of good genetics there indeed.

Melissa - formerly Nuc #3

The yellow box is on lone from Heléna.  The white box is drying from a bleaching it received to clear up the mold issue.  In a day or so I'll switch them out.  I'll do an inspection  as soon as I see the bees have drawn some comb in the top box.  I need to make a Slatted Rack and a new cover for her too now that she's a big girl.

The year is just moving right along...

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