Inspection 5/24/08

[watercarving]

All the details: http://www.johncall.com/blog/beekeeping-inspection-052408/

N1 is flying great. Opened it up. The brood frame I added is there and full. Both queen cells are empty. One had the opening chewed away open and the other had a flap like someone used a can opener. We assumed the winner chewed her way out and the loser got opened up like a can opener to be thrown out.

Anyway, appears N1 may have been queenless like we feared and now a new queen should hopefully be laying soon. There are drones flying so we'll see.

After 17 days N1 has built 1 bar of comb and A1 has built 2. They had some nuc frames left to finish but this seems really slow. Are Russians slow comb builders?

Overall looks pretty good.

[doak]

If both queens hatch out and get out of the cell they fight to death, winner take all.
If one gets out of her cell ahead of the other, she will go to the other cell and kill the other queen in the cell then the workers will clean up.

(I have read), that if the one the workers don't want starts to hatch first, they, the workers will hold her in the cell till the one they want hatches and comes to kill the unwanted one.
doak