Queen cells in the observation hive !

This morning I went over to Celeste’s to check on her re-queen. Last week we checked her hive and there was still no queen. So we put a new one into the hive on July 14th. The new Carniolan queen had not been released from the cage. The bees release her by eating a candy plug in the cage, so we removed the screen and released her into the hive. All but one of the nurse bees that came in the cage was dead.

At my house, I checked and found a queen cell in the observation hive! Upon closer inspection I was able to find three queen cells !! A lot of the larvae died Saturday and Sunday, plus it looks like some of the capped brood didn’t make it either because the worker bees have been uncapping and pulling out pupa. But now with the queen cells it looks like the eggs survived. I’m only able to check the side facing the bedroom, so not sure if there are queen cells on the other side. The bees have almost completed cleaning out the capped honey that I put in the top. I have a mason jar full of sugar water to feed them. I put it on on Saturday and it is half full. I think I also found some new born bees, so things are shaping up in the observation hive.

The observation hive is such a great thing. I'm able to watch the bees during the day. Today I saw them seal up one of the queen cells.  Here is a picture of the entrance tube:

I took a quick picture of the cut up comb. I had to sacrifice half of one of my super frames full of honey to support this observation hive, but it was well worth it. I found a bunch of healthy larvae inside the combs while looking at the hive today.  Here is a picture of the cut up comp which I put into the top of the observation hive.