One of These Hives is Not Like the Other

A week or so ago, assistant beekeeper (ABK) and I found a pile of dead bees by the entrance of the Sylvia hive. We formulated some theories....a pesticide kill, a small robbing war (bees from another hive fighting to the death to steal honey...Italian Bees are bad about robbing as a species). Whatever the cause, there were dead bees. We also began to observe that the traffic in and out of the Sylvia hive was much less busy than the Rachel hive. Today, we cracked open the hives just for a few minutes to check on them. The Sylvia hive was full of bees on the bottom deep, but had only barely begun to draw out comb on the top deep. I didn't check for a queen or eggs since you're not supposed to mess with the bees too much during a honey bloom and since it was really starting to look like rain.

The Rachel hive, on the other hand, had really done some major comb construction. The two pictures below show the top of Rachel's top deep...you can see the beautiful white comb they've built. Rachel's only problem was that the frames were no longer evenly spaced, so I moved them around a little to get their bee space right.

We learned in bee school to get two colonies so that you have a basis for comparison. Later, I may end up taking some frames from Rachel to beef up Sylvia's supplies. We'll see how it goes. When I first brought them home, Sylvia was the stronger hive. Fortunes change.