Inspection on a cold day

On thanksgiving day I looked under the lid of #3 and saw no bees in neither the Vivaldi box nor on the visible frames.  This was the hive that had the pile of wax moth droppings in the tray.  I was concerned about its declining population so I knew I had to take a look.  
Yesterday afternoon the temperature reached 59, and even though I prefer it over 60, I felt the situation demanded an inspection,so with Seth's good help we took a look.

Photo from Maidi's iPhone

There were only a handful of bees in the top box, and after lifting it and its pounds of honey,
we searched for the brood. We tried taking the frames from one side of the hive but there was so much propolis that despite much prying we were unsuccessful.  I figure that in the cold the propolis is too hard.
We were able to get a frame loose on the other side with only minor damage to the box itself.
We looked at enough frames to find a hand-sized patch brood that looked pretty good.  It did have more empty cells than usual, but not too many.  
Since the population had decreased I wanted to decrease the hive to one box.  That way the bees would be able to keep warm and patrol for wax moths more easily.
We replaced 3 empty in the bottom box with 3 frames full of honey from the top box.
There were still a few frames of honey left so we cut one into comb honey.

 I will allow the bees to take some of the honey from the other frames then freeze them all (to kill any mites or wax moth eggs) and then use them in the hives next spring.

Giving back to the bees