Two weeks ago, my dad went into the hive and removed the piece of tape that was covering the candy plug to allow the new Russian queen and workers to start eating through the candy and ultimately release her into the hive. When he checked the hive last week, the queen had been released, but there wasn't much brood, so we were still doubting whether things had gone according to plan.

Last night I went into the hive to look for brood, and finally, SUCCESS! There were about 3 frames mostly full of brood, with honey around the edges (if you look closely at the picture, you can see uncapped brood cells, which have white larvae inside). Even better, there were LOTS of worker bees! Horray! After about 2 months of going downhill, we have revived the hive! I added a second hive body to allow the growth to expand upward to 10 new frames. The bees are going to be busy building out comb on the new frames.

One other adjustment we made recently: adding a ratchet strap to the hive. My dad recently encountered a black bear mother and cub on our road, so we decided it was time to more securely close the hive. I'll check back again next weekend to add more food (still feeding sugar water) and investigate progress on the new frames.