> 
> Hi Joe - thanks for the tip on the lemongrass and wax!  I'm in Livermore, CA, East Bay Area,.  I looked at one hive today that I looked at three weeks ago.  They have been building hard since Jan.  They have backfilled about everything they could with nectar and pollen, even though I put on two honey mediums three weeks ago.  I could not see any eggs or the queen even though there was some open comb still, just young to old brood.  There were three sealed queen cells and at least five others that were unsealed.  They were all near the center of the hive and at the bottom of the frames.  I don't think that there is much I can do at this point to keep them from swarming as they are so far down the track except for splitting them.  As I couldn't find the queen I'm going to do the following in two days after the rain is gone:

Set up an empty deep put a queen excluder on it, shake the frames from the first deep over the empty deep and watch for the queen.  If I find her then put her in that deep without any queen cells and add a second deep.  If she is not, then add the queen cells to the double deep and let them settle down.  Then continue to the next deep using the same process until I find her.  What do you think about this method?

Scott
Livermore, CA
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