Catch-Shotgun Merger Update: Success! Thanks to my co-workers covering for me, I got to run home for 30 minutes to check on the crew during daylight hours. All of Catch’s girls have completely vacated their hive box and moved down into Shotgun’s two story. They are already fully integrated with their adoptive family! And it’s amazing what this injection of worker bee power has done for Shotgun’s hive. They are now on fire!!!

With the added labor force, the colony has initiated a monumental spring cleaning project that is putting their bee neighbors to shame. Look at the rubbish pile they accumulated on the front porch today… just between sunrise and noon! And overall hive entrance traffic has more than doubled, even though the hive merger only bumped up the total colony population by 30% or so. Both sets of girls appear energized by the new dynamics.

What is particularly awesome for me is that the girls differ phenotypically. Catch’s daughters are more yellow while Shotgun’s are more black. And I can actually see that they are now seamlessly homogeneously heterogeneous! Bees of both color patterns are working side by side- cleaning house, bringing in pollen, guarding the door, bringing out the dead and hauling water. Goodbye Chaos, Hello Order! . Well done, Ladies! Well, done!