Campus hives were inspected. Apis19A and Apis19B were opened and a quick inspection performed. Eggs and larva were seen. New comb being drawn very quickly. Both colonies are extremely calm and easy to manage at this point. No smoke needed.
WildCA18B split hive opened and inspected. Queen cell was indeed dead and not viable. Bees had chewed the cap partially off of the queen cell and inside was a dead queen. Currently this hive has been split across 2 nuc boxes with a queen excluder between. The queen excluder was removed making this 1 colony again across 2 stacked nuc boxes. No smoke needed. This colony has never grown very large. I suspect these 2 nuc boxes will be adequate for their long term needs.
Splits were left alone and not bothered. The queen should have had their mating flights across the last few nice warm days. I would have expected the mating flights to occur between May 2nd – May 6th. If not, they will not have another chance.
Swarm traps were inspected and baited with Swam commander.