The weather has turned in our favor over the last several days. The bees are gathering fresh nectar and loads of pollen. It's a long road to full-strength colonies, but things are finally headed in the right direction. Some of the parent colonies that declined after I split them have turned the corner toward recovery. I also had a pleasant surprise when Alex and I visited ten of our two-pound packages that I installed four weeks ago. Most of those packages are now 6-8 frames of bees. Much better than I anticipated from my package observations in another location a week ago. Lastly, the splits I made on the first round have expanded sufficiently to warrant a second hive body. Hopefully things keep moving in a positive direction. On the downside, here are a couple of photos from the latest American Foulbrood incident: In the first you see the ropy brown goo of a recent infection, and in the other photo a few scales are visible in the base of some cells.