My Background: I am brand new to this as of this year. I have read about everything I can find from Michael Bush and just dove in.
My Bees: I have two hives: Strawberry and Peanut. Both are two 10 frame mediums. They are about 5 feet apart in a meadow like area near my home. I installed packages on April 26. Both hives seemed to be doing great until about the end of May. At that point, it seemed like Peanut was lagging behind Strawberry just a bit.
My Concern: Two weeks ago it became very apparent that Peanut was lagging. All frames in the bottom box were at least 75% filled with comb but there was nothing in the top box. By contrast, Strawberry had one full frame and two partials in the top box. I swapped an empty frame from the top for a full frame of brood from the bottom box (remember, just two boxes) to give them a start up top. Two weeks slipped by (hellacious work work) and I went to see them today.
Strawberry now had 9/10 frames in the top box full with one frame completely empty. Third box added to the top.
Peanut had partially filled one frame (in addition to the one I transplanted) in the top box and had filled the empty frame in the bottom box. That worried me. So I dug into the bottom box. Here's what I found over several frames. Sorry in advance for the barrage of pictures.
PICTURE 1
PICTURE 2
PICTURE 3
PICTURE 4
PICTURE 5
PICTURE 6
PICTURE 7
Supersedure? Swarm? I can't imagine swarm as they have an almost entirely empty box on the hive. HELP???
My Bees: I have two hives: Strawberry and Peanut. Both are two 10 frame mediums. They are about 5 feet apart in a meadow like area near my home. I installed packages on April 26. Both hives seemed to be doing great until about the end of May. At that point, it seemed like Peanut was lagging behind Strawberry just a bit.
My Concern: Two weeks ago it became very apparent that Peanut was lagging. All frames in the bottom box were at least 75% filled with comb but there was nothing in the top box. By contrast, Strawberry had one full frame and two partials in the top box. I swapped an empty frame from the top for a full frame of brood from the bottom box (remember, just two boxes) to give them a start up top. Two weeks slipped by (hellacious work work) and I went to see them today.
Strawberry now had 9/10 frames in the top box full with one frame completely empty. Third box added to the top.
Peanut had partially filled one frame (in addition to the one I transplanted) in the top box and had filled the empty frame in the bottom box. That worried me. So I dug into the bottom box. Here's what I found over several frames. Sorry in advance for the barrage of pictures.
PICTURE 1

PICTURE 2

PICTURE 3

PICTURE 4

PICTURE 5

PICTURE 6

PICTURE 7

Supersedure? Swarm? I can't imagine swarm as they have an almost entirely empty box on the hive. HELP???