The Bees

You may remember that we had two hives abscond last year, leaving us with two fairly weak ones.  One we know left because we did not feed them enough; the other ?  As of now, our two original hives by the chicken coop are 50/50.  One hive, the mean girls, are doing well (don't we always) and we added honey super #3 yesterday.  The other hive, the one that tried to swarm, is not faring so well.  We now know why-a failing queen.  This was her 3rd year, so it is understandable.  There was no brood but at least two queen cells.  So we will be keeping close check on that hive.  Our two newer hives in the front yard are still doing well.  We transferred the frames from the nuc into a full-sized hive body today, as well as a honey supper.  A little bit of capped brood and a lot of honey production going on there.  The  other hive was already in a normal deep super, so we just added the honey super.  Our newest addition, is a nuc that we obtained from a fellow bee club member.  We found the marked queen and her brood pattern is nice.  We will probably give her a couple of more days before we transfer her to the deep.  We also still need to buy a screened bottom board and inner cover, as well as maybe stock up on some honey super foundation.  But so far, our girls are hanging around and working hard.  I am confident that we will have a fair amount of spring honey this year.  I do need to plant some more bee friendly plants around the homestead though. I feel bad if they have to fly TOO far.