It was just May 17th when I added the second frame box to the beehive. I had some concerns that the bees were overcrowded. My intuition was correct. I had pulled two frames from the original box and had intended to remove them completely from the hive but that were covered with bees and some of the misshaped comb had larvae in them. So instead, I put two new frames with fresh foundation panels into the lower box and pulled the off frames into the upper box, surrounded them with 8 also fresh frames with plain foundation panels and waited.
I have been rewarded.
I have made a tactical error in building the hive stand so high. The lower stands my friend has are too low and kill my back. But now that the second frame box has been added, the hive is almost too high. I definitely do no have enough work space to unstack the entire hive boxes and remove frames. So, I settled with just checking the top box. I didn’t look for the queen. Evidence of her is everywhere. These frames had no comb on them May 17th. Now the frames are heavier with honey and crawling with bees.
The two frames that had the weird comb STILL have weird comb but it is filled with larvae and honey.
This is the hive just before replacing the lid. All was well.
