First month with two hives completed and in need of some guidance.

[Sam Fugate]

It has been a month now since I received my two hives. Thanks to this forum I have learned a lot. I have a question: Since placing the hives, one of them has flourished, bee population is strong and I have taken one super of honey from it and gave them more room by adding a deep box. They have taken to the box and are happy.
The other hive was smaller only two medium boxes. This hive doesn't seem to be growing in numbers although there is significant foraging activity and they are taking feed to the tune of one quart a day. I am feeding them 1:1 sugar syrup with HBH added. I did an inspection of the top super two weeks ago, comb was drawn out on all ten frames and full of honey. so I placed another medium on it in hopes of seeing the bee population explode but I am not seeing any growth. Maybe someone can tell me if this is normal or at least point me in the right direction as to what to do.

I was going to check for a queen but my smoker went out and the bees were VERY mad, I had to close it up.

An observation, The large hive shows signs of verroa mites, very low count, but still there. while the small hive shows no sign of pests.

[johnth78]

Easy thing now is to switch places with the hives causing the foragers of the strong hive to go into the weak hive. If your feeding, the super you took is simply syrup, feed it back to the weak hive.

[rlsiv]

On your smaller hive: What does the bottom box look like?
Also, if the super was full of honey and you placed another new super on TOP of that, the queen won't usually move up past that honey block to start laying in a higher super.

[Sam Fugate]

Easy thing now is to switch places with the hives causing the foragers of the strong hive to go into the weak hive. If your feeding, the super you took is simply syrup, feed it back to the weak hive.

I guess I should have mentioned that I did not start feeding the bigger hive until after I robbed the super.
If I switch the hives, will there be some territorial issues ? I want to be sure that the smaller hive can survive the winter.

[Sam Fugate]

On your smaller hive: What does the bottom box look like?
Also, if the super was full of honey and you placed another new super on TOP of that, the queen won't usually move up past that honey block to start laying in a higher super.

When I put the super on the small hive, I exchanged every other frame, in the first super with a new frame and did the same with the new super. Checker boarding ?

What does the bottom box look like ? I will have to go back into it to see. My smoker went out and the bees were VERY pissed.