Hive #2 was not discernibly increasing in population when I looked in a few days ago. I decided it was time to give it a boost with brood from hive #1. Before doing so, I reviewed several sources for the best way to do it.
I first had to look into #1 to find a frame with all or mostly all capped brood. The queen was in the top box, still, and I found one frame with mostly capped brood cells; there were about 10 larvae visible. Leaving the frame where it was, I then opened #2. That hive is only one deep box now. I removed one frame from the side, then looked at frames near the center, finding where there was some brood. Leaving those frames alone, I shifted the other frames over making space for the transplant. Then back to #1 to get the chosen frame. I carefully looked to be certain the queen was not now on this frame, then spritzed all the bees with my Honey-B-Healthy. I also spritzed into the space in #2. Then I put the transplant frame with all the nurse bees into #2 and closed it up. I replaced the frame in #1 with a drone frame. Then I lifted the top box of #1 and removed the Mite-away quick strips. I cleaned off a lot of brace comb and closed up. I only saw a few drones.
During all this, the girls were getting more and more upset and there were several guards angrily buzzing about my head. When it got too annoying, I would spray them with my H-B-H. After I was all done, there were quite a few angry bees flying around the hive, so I put off mowing the lawn for a couple of hours.
It's been sunny enough the past few days to use the solar melter. I have been able to process all the wax I had saved since last fall, almost a pound more.
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