Bee Update

Since their installations at the beginning of this month, both hives have been building comb and gathering pollen and nectar at about the same rate.   However, during a routine inspection this week, I noticed something that has lead me to consider the possibility of combining the two hives into one hive sometime in the next few days.  In one of the hives large portions of all of the combs are loaded with larva and pupa in various stages of development.  I can tell that this hive has a healthy queen and will be growing in population very soon.  In the other hive, however, there is no brood.  All of the combs are well built, but filled with honey.  This would indicate to me that there is either no queen or there is something seriously wrong with the current queen.  Either way, this hive won't last long.  During that inspection, I took one of the brood combs from the healthy hive and placed it in the sterile hive.  If the workers need a queen, they should be able to take some of the young eggs in the brood comb and raise them into queens.  Tomorrow I will check the hive and look for queen cells.  If there are any, I will let things move forward on there own, but, if things still haven't gotten better, I will seriously consider combining the hives.