>Yesterday I had to move my older hive onto another stand. Two deeps one medium super. We did not take everything apart and did not find the queen. The second super is full with honey, the crescent on the frames is nice and light, the inner pattern is dark, full and capped with flat caps. To mee it looks like all honey.
If they are shiny, I would agree. Color isn't really the indicator, the texture and shape of the caps is.
>The lower brood super has evidence of brood although we did not take it apart. What do we have here?
Assuming you don't have an excluder it would be less confusing if you just refered to medium and deep boxes. You keep calling them supers and it is a bit confusing.
What is "evidence of brood"? Is there brood? Open brood? Eggs?
>This hive is in its second year and is not as energetic as my other one that is six months old.
That often happens. Some blame it on the age of the queen, which may contribute, but sometimes a swarm with an old queen takes off faster than an established hive with a brand new queen.
Sometimes it's hard to know what motivates bees. Some think depriving them of stores will motivate them to work harder, and they think that is the reason a swarm works so hard.