July -September- Hives are Humming, then 2&3 die abruptly

We have created a new website for just our bee activities. You can follow our bee activities at http://www.goldenglowbees.com/

We inspected the hives on July 4th and July 20-22nd, unrecalled dates in August, and September 14th

7/4/13
Hive 1:

1. queen looked healthy
2. many drones
3. original frames look very full, but little or no expansion/wax creation on adjacent frames  
4. no wax yet above queen excluder
5. curious removal of plasticell at perimeter (bottom) of new frames 

Hive 2:

we had fed hives 2 & 3 "Brood Builder" - they seemed to really enjoy it

1. saw queen, looked healthy
   
   
   
2. 1/2 new frame had wax buildup

Hive 3:

 

Comparison July 4-20th

 

7/20 Hive 3 (small hive):

We saw queen:

We had two friends observing, Joanne:

 
and her daughter, Julia:

We saw activity on one new frame:

On 7/21, we noticed bees in the house and garage, being aggressive.  The problem appeared to come from the fact that we accidentally left the top-feeder, filled with sugar water, between hives 2 & 3, open, overnight. Thousands of bees were in the sugar-water, many dead and more attracted to it. We weren't sure if they were our bees, or others. Hive 2 seemed to be experiencing vigorous robbing behavior. We covered the entrances to Hives 2 & 3 overnight.

7/22:

Hive 1:

outer 4 frames still not built out:

                                                                 September 14 Hive 1 

 

July22 Hive 1

 

Main Frames

September 14:

July 22

 Inner frames:

 Hive 2:

Outer frames not much on them:

Inner small frames we accidentally used are very full. These were the frames we partially filled with comb from when we captured the bees in the irrigation box. The bees have fully filled out the frames:

 and the bees are forming their own comb below the frames:

We found the queen and she looked healthy and productive: