Double Queen Hive Update

I checked on my newly installed double queen hive this morning and everything is looking good so far.  All the bees from both hives are now friends and it's a really strong hive now.  I inspected the weaker brood box first and found some capped brood, lots of empty brood cells and some uncapped honey.  I'm not sure if the queen is still in this hive or, if she is in the hive, if she's laying.  It was difficult to see if there were any eggs and I didn't see any young larva.  I'll check again in a few days.

In the stronger hive, I didn't find the queen, but I did see lots of capped brood and LOTS of very young larva.  This queen is definitely still in this brood box so I'll let her alone to do her thing.  I'm glad that at least one good queen is still alive. 

I had installed some Cutts Beetle Traps in three places within the hive last week and found no hive beetles in the weak hive trap, about 10 dead beetles in the strong hive trap and no hive beetles in the honey super trap.  I put all three back on the frames so hopefully I'll catch some more.  Altogether, I saw about 10 live hive beetles running freely during my entire inspection so I wouldn't consider that a bad infestation.  Still, I want to keep their numbers down.  Small Hive Beetles lay their eggs in the honey stores and their larva basically putrefy the honey.  They're a scourge within a hive.

Finally, I treated for Varroa mites.  I put powdered sugar in a flour sifter and sprinkled a good amount on top of all the frames.  Then I used a bee brush to get the sugar on all the bees that were down inside the hive between the frames.  They REALLY didn't like this and immediately began buzzing loud and flying around, banging into my veil.  It won't hurt them, but they now have to groom themselves to get the sugar off.  In the process, the Varroa mites will fall off of them, down through the screened bottom board and onto the ground where they'll die.

We are in a severe drought here in North Texas.  Temperatures have been over 100 degrees for more days than I can remember.  Everything is dried up or dying.  I'm not sure the fall flowers will emerge.  I'm hoping we'll get some rain soon to encourage some blooms to peek out.  I visited a fellow beekeeper this week and he said a lot of beekeepers in our area didn't harvest honey this year because the bees just weren't able to make any due to the drought.  Some beekeepers are already feeding sugar syrup to their bees to keep them alive.  So far my bees have some honey and I'll keep a close watch on them to make sure they don't run out.  If they do, then I'll have to start feeding them, too.