New hive stands

I was not satisfied with my old hive stands for two reasons.  Firstly, I was uncertain about their weight bearing capacity.  Secondly, in order to keep the ants out, the legs were in cans holding motor oil.  Bees would get into the oil, when it rained the water/oil mix was disgusting, oil would leak or spill into the soil and also soak into and up the hive stand legs. 
At the UC Davis apiary, the hive stand legs were metal pipes and they kept the ants out with Tanglefoot  protected from dust and bees by upside down cans.  I decided to replace my old stands with ones similar to those at Davis.
I decided to use 2x4's and some sort of pipe for legs.  Initially I planned on bolting the legs to the wood, but then realized it would be better and more aesthetic to bore holes in the frame for the legs.
I found some inexpensive electrical conduit pipe at Home Depot.

Pipes and wood before cutting

I found pvc end caps for the ends of the pipe, lag screws to hold the wood together and old tomato cans to protect the tangle foot.

Parts ready for assembly (not all wood or cans shown)

I had to be careful to line up the pilot holes for the lag screws and had only one small error.

An assembled stand, sans cans

I put the cans onto the legs using duct tape to hold the loose ones in place.  Then I painted them with spray on enamel.

A finished hive stand

Today, with the good help of Mihir, after putting Tanglefoot onto the pipe, the old double hive stand was replaced.

Clean up the old hive

I have finished the dismantling and clean-up of the defunct hive #3.  With the use of the escape board, I took off box I had combined with #2. I took 4 frames of newish drawn comb from that box and replaced 4 frames with old wax in the top brood box. 
I then spent a couple of days of scraping propolis and burr comb from all the frames and scraping the old wax off the foundation.  I cleaned and repaired the boxes,
Now my shed is full of deep and medium boxes, plastic garbage bags with drawn comb and lots of empty frames. 
I have started building the new hive stands.  My drill press is inadequate for making the necessary holes in the pipes, so today I went by the Cabrillo College tool shop.  The manager there said he would drill the holes for me next week after finals there are done.  Pictures will be forthcoming.

What is wrong with this picture?

That is correct- hive #3 is gone!
I last saw brood in #3 in mid-October when giving them pollen patties.  One week ago I looked to see if the patties had been eaten and they were gone from Olea's and #2 so I did not bother to check #3.  There were brood and larvae in the top box of #2.
A couple of days ago I noticed that there was little activity at the entrance of #3 and when I looked under the lid, there were no bees in the Vivaldi box or visible through the hole of the box.  The next day (yesterday) I took a good look.  My fears were realized.  There were bees on only two or three frames in the top box and even then only covered about 1/4 of each side.  No larvae or brood.  The bottom box was empty drawn comb with some old bee bread.  I wonder what caused the hive to go queenless.
Today I combined the top box of #3 with #2 using the newspaper method.  You can see the paper sticking out in the above picture.  Three frames of comb will be saved while the rest are old and black and the wax will be processed and the foundation cleaned and reused.
The bees of #3 have always been feisty, so if I have to lose a colony I would have chosen this one.
Now I have to decide what to do with the nuc, assuming in makes it through the winter.  Originally I had intended it for a new #1.  #2 looks strong so I could make a split in early spring and if that nuc grows strong enough make it into a new #3.

After Apivar report

Last week I removed the Apivar strips from all the hives.  Muffie joined me to look into Olea's.

A few days before, I inspected Cyn's hive with her.  She had been given it by Bruce who is moving to North Carolina.  What I noticed in her hive is that there was essentially no pollen.   Normally there is a band of pollen around the brood and then a band of honey.  You can see the pollen by the brood but not much honey in the below picture.

picture from an internet site

The  below picture (also from the internet) shows a nice patch of capped brood with some drone cells in the lower left, nice capped honey but no pollen.


 This is what we saw in Cyn's hive.  Fortunately Bruce had also given Cyn some substitute pollen patties and we put one in her hive.  She gave me some patties as a thank you gift.  When I looked into my hives, it looked like there was not much pollen (even though lots of bees were bringing in pollen) so I put a patty into each hive (not the nuc).
Olea's hive had lots of bees and there was a bit more honey than the last time I looked.  I saw the queen and brood in the top box of #2; did not look into the bottom box.  There was brood in the top box of #3.  The bottom box was just empty comb.  Back in May I had reversed the boxes of #2 but not #3.  Since the bottom box is empty now, I think that in the future I will reverse boxes in the spring if the queen is in the top box.

Apivar in

Four days ago I removed the final super and put the Apivar in the hives.  I had thought all the brood had hatched but I overlooked one frame.

Fortunately it is not a large number of bees lost.  You can see a few bees emerging.  Since I left the super in the garage for a few day, the cold killed all of them.
I had planned to take honey from Olea's hive.  I found only a couple of bars with capped honey and on them, only about half the cells were capped.  I decided to leave it all for the bees.  I did take out three bars that had empty comb on them.
The instructions for Apivar say one strip/frame full of bees.  Pretty straightforward.  However, I don't know how to convert a top bar comb full of bees to a Langstroth frame FOB.  I guess that each top bar is about 1/2 of a Langstroth.  I had 10-11 bars FOB, so I put in only one strip.  On retrospect I may have underestimated the size of the comb and probably should have put in 2 strips.
Each brood box of hives #2 & 3 got two strips.  I put one strip into the nuc.  In 6-8 weeks I will remove the strips.
Today I scraped the comb with capped honey off of the two frames from the super and Maidi strained in obtaining 6 cups of honey.
I put the frames outside for the bees to clean up.

This photo was taken about 3 hours after the bees got to it.  The white foundation had been coated with honey.  Only a few bees were still on either frame.

The queen excluder seems to be working

Just a brief note.  I looked into the super of #3.  There are still small patches of capped brood but no larvae.  The queen is no longer laying up there, either because of the excluder or her own desire.  Soon I will remove the super, harvest the small amount of honey and then treat all the hives with apivar.

First use of a queen excluder

After extracting the honey ( 3 gallons or so), I put the stickies back onto the hives.  The expectation was that the bees would clean them up, then I could remove and store them.  After all the supers were off, I would treat with Apivar.  In case you did not read through the instructions (on the link), the Apivar strips should be used while there are no honey supers.  Like, right after the honey harvest, or now, in my case.  I also wanted to treat Olea's hive at the same time, so I need to get the honey from there.  I needed to wait a bit for that, too.  (see end of blog from 8/9).
In any case, I went today to take off the supers.  I had put the escape  board in tho make it easier.  In the first super, there were three frames of clean, empty comb, but the rest of the comb had nectar in it and the bees were swarming about.  Now what?  (Remember, I don't know what I'm doing.)
I decided to just take off all the supers and let the bees clean them up away from the hive.

What you can not appreciate in the above picture is the small cloud of bees around and below the supers and the loud buzzing.
I did remember that there was some brood in the lowest super on #3, so I checked again, and sure enough, there was brood on two frames, even young larvae.  I did not want to take this super off, but it looked like the queen was not going to stop laying up there.  Now what?
Aha!  I will put the queen excluder in!  Leaving the hive opened, I went to the shed to get the excluder.  Of course it was at the bottom of the rearmost stack of boxes and other hive parts.  After I moved everything out of the way and retrieved an excluder I put everything back, a bit more organized than it had been.
Back to the hive where there was near chaos with bees everywhere and a few yellow jackets trying to get in.  I guess leaving the hive opened was not the best idea.  I put the queen excluder in and then examined each frame in the super 4 times for the queen.  I did not see here so I closed up everything.
It takes 21 days for a worker to develop from an egg.  In 3 weeks, I will take off the super, harvest any honey left in it, take the honey from Olea's and treat all colonies with Apivar.

I'm in business

So, what happened with the nuc?

Four weeks ago, I made a "walk away" split with eggs, larvae, capped brood and nurse bees from #2.  Today was the day I had marked to check if the bees had successfully made a queen who then successfully mated and had started laying.
I had been optimistic because I had seen bees bringing in pollen, usually a sign that there is brood present.

The first good indication was the number of bees in the colony.  This was definitely more than the 3 frames I had put in.
On the second frame I looked at there was capped brood and larvae, so I knew there was a queen.  I decided to look at the other frames in order to choose one to photograph for you.
I decided the first one was best and here is what I saw:

Look closely at this picture.  Do you notice anything special?
How about in the middle a third up from the bottom?
Here is a close up:

On another note- every time I opened the door to the shed, many bees tried to get in.  There were also a lot of bees flying around a frame that had very little if any nectar.

It dawned on me that this is probably because the honey from has ended and the foragers are looking for any available food.  So yesterday I put entrance reducers in all the hives including the nuc.
I also went into Olea's to take the honey.  There was a fair amount of uncapped honey.  On the frames that did have capped honey, only the top half was capped.  I did not take any comb from Olea's, but I will in a couple of weeks.

Now it is bees in the garage, or, no escape

I have been removing the supers to harvest the honey using an escape board to clear them of bees.  Yet many bees stubbornly held onto the frames.   I used my shop-vac as a blower to get the bees off.  This worked pretty well, but still a few bees hung on and ended up in the garage.
There was one more super on #3 to remove.  The bees were just not leaving even though I waited more than 24 hours, so this afternoon I removed it. 
I had my suspicions as to why they were not escaping.  I examined each frame, and sure enough, two of them had small patches of capped brood as well as some larvae.  I carefully searched for the queen and, fortunately, she was not there.  The two frames with some brood as well as three with unripe honey and five frames with drawn comb were put back onto #3.
I had 5 frames of capped honey and the bees were all over it.  I got out the shop vac and attempted to blow them off.  As soon as one frame was cleared and I moved to the next, the girls were back on the first.  So I just blew off as many as I could and took the box into the garage.  In the garage now is reminiscent of the shed a couple of days ago, although considerably fewer bees.
I will start extracting in the next few days.
In a couple of days, I will be able to check the nuc for a laying queen.

Oops!

I have been removing the supers for the fall honey harvest.  BTW, there is less honey than I had anticipated.
In any case, some frames in the super had nothing or only nectar or unripe honey in them.  I intend to place these back on the hives.  I was storing one in the shed and accidentally left the shed door open.  When I went to close the door, I was in for a surprise.

Another split made

A few days ago, I made a walk away split from #2.  That is one without a queen but with a frame with eggs and young larvae as well as 2 frames with capped and emerging brood.  The remaining two frames have honey and pollen.  Four weeks after making the split, I will check for evidence of a laying queen, i.e., eggs or larvae.  As you can see in the above picture, there is no activity at the entrance of the nuc, but it is only 4 days old.  The nurse bees are still in the box.

This is looking into the nuc through a vent hole.  The propolis was built mostly by previous occupants.
Speaking of propolis, I sold 8 ounces of my extract to a local health food store!  Julie's attractive labels helped.

I did have some help making the split.  A couple of weeks ago I got a call from Tony, a neighbor of Roberta's.  He just started keeping bees this year and had some questions.  I went to his home to look into his hive and met Damara, a friend of his and a first year beek.  They came over to visit my apiary and help to assemble the nuc.

At last, some good news

Yesterday it was time to look into Olea's hive to see if there was a laying queen.  In a top bar hive, the bees will partially attach some of the comb to side walls.  If one does not cut it free before moving the bar, the comb will break.  (I can attest to that).  I had been using a steak knife to cut the comb but I recently purchased a top bar hive tool which I used yesterday for the first time.  It was easier than the steak knife but it still required careful use.
Anyway... I first smoked the bees as Olea's colony has been feisty.  Instead of starting at the back, I looked in the window and located a bar that was not yet completely drawn (#13 I think) removed it and set it in the little space behind the follower board.  I did it this way because I do not have a top bar comb stand (or here) and I wanted to avoid a repeat of the comb falling onto the ground.  I removed and inspected each comb moving towards the front of the hive.  The bees were easily aroused and I did not hesitate to use more smoke.  On #10 I saw larvae and on #9 I saw the queen!  Her phenotype suggests that she has carniolan genes as she is darker and a bit smaller than a typical italian and a little larger than a carni.  Of course, I am not 100% certain that Olea's swarmed and that this is a new queen, but that is a reasonable assumption.  And if she is new, I hope that the personality of the colony will change for the better as their present demeanor is unpleasant.
#2 is still not strong but there is excellent brood pattern in both brood boxes.  I did not see the queen.
I did not inspect #3 but checked its honey production.  The top super had moderate honey but the side frames were still empty.  I deliberated whether to add a super and finally decided to do so.  I went to the shed, grabbed a new super with frames and put it on.  However, the bottom of the frame was uneven and left a gap.  (I will have to even it out somehow.)  Back to the shed for a different super.  Took one out and saw that 3 frames in it had honey in the cells as well as ants all over.  Shook all the ants off, scraped off propolis and burr wax, added 7 more frames and put the super on #3 which now has three supers.  I think the fall harvest will be good.

Update on Olea's, or, it is not as easy as expected

Three days ago I looked in Olea's window and was surprised by what I saw.

Only some days earlier, all those combs were covered with bees.  (These are the last combs in the box.  There are still a dozen combs full of bees.)  Where had they gone?  I looked on the ground in front of the hive and was relieved not to see hundreds of corpses.  Have you figured it out yet?
Of course I cannot be certain, but I think they swarmed.  I looked all around our yard and into the neighbors' yard looking for a bunch of bees flying around a cluster.  No luck. 
Today I took the MAQ out of Olea's.  When I put it in, I put 2 empty bars above it.  In the 8 days since, the bees had built a large comb on one bar and a nubbin on the other.  The larger was mostly drone cell size and there was a patch of nectar, too.  I placed the bars on the hive while I retrieved the MAQ and moved the other bars back together.  I decided to place the 2 bars into the hive even though there already was so much empty comb.
Moving things shook the box a bit and the large comb fell over onto the ground.

One of the things that can make bees testy is being queenless.  After a colony swarms, there will not be a laying queen for up to 2 weeks.  Throughout my working on the hive I was besieged by angry soldier bees, adding a bit of credence to my theory of what happened to the missing bees.  It got so annoying that I fetched by honey-b-healthy sprayer and repeatedly spritzed the bees flying about my face.
I did get the hive back together with the new combs towards the back.  There are now 20 bars in Oleas.  I will look into Olea's around the 24th to look for evidence of a laying queen.

Uh-oh. Bees under threat, again

A bit has happened since the last blog.
When we left off, I had combined the boxes of the defunct #1 with #2 & 3 and had some supers of capped honey to extract.  Four days later I took a look to see how the combining had done.  In #3, the newspaper was intact but there were no bees in the added box.  I must have placed the entrance of the double screen board the wrong way so all the bees had flown out.  (Measure twice, cut once.)  I took off the box and switched in a couple of frames that had honey and pollen.   There was still brood in the lower super but the bees seemed to be back-filling.  There was a smattering of brood in the upper brood box.  Maybe the queen was moving down.  I considered putting in a queen excluder, but since I had not spotted the queen I could just as well have trapped her in the super.
#2 had chewed through the paper and there were still bees in the box.  I shook the bees off, removed the box and switched some frames in 2 as well.  I did not look into the brood box.
We had extracted the honey from #1's supers, getting about 28 pounds.  I put 4 stickies onto #3 and 10 onto #2.
I added 2 more bars to Olea's for a total of 18 now.
The bees were not going to the sand/rock water source so I changed it to peat moss.  (As of today, they are not going there, either.)

Five days ago I put in sticky boards to check the mite level.  The following day (9 days since last inspection), a couple we know came over to look into the hives with me; they have just started their first hive.  We looked through #3.  There was still brood in the lower super, perhaps even more than before.  We did not see the queen.  But I did see a bee affected by deformed wing virus.
This is not my bee, but it could have been. 
Deformed wing virus is transmitted by the mites and is a sign of parasitic mite syndrome, a bad thing for a hive to have.  I also saw on the floor of the hive the abdomen of a drone pupa with a mite attached.  (The nurse bees had removed the pupa because of the mite, a demonstration of hygienic behavior.)
I took a look at just a few inches of the sticky board and saw 10 or more mites, after only one day.  I knew the girls were in big trouble.
I went back to the shed and got MAQs and put two into both Langstroth hives with spacers.  Two days later I put a single MAQ into Olea's.  I put it on the floor of the box next to the first frame of brood I reached and put two empty bars above it.  I got this idea from a bee forum.
Today I took out the sticky boards.  There was well over 100 mites on each.

Good news, bad news

First the bad news.
It has been a week since last checking #1 so it was time to see if it was queen right or not.  I took a look around and saw no sign of  a laying queen nor, thankfully, of a laying worker.  I did see an unopened queen cell.

It was on a frame of otherwise empty drawn comb.  It was a bit smaller than the usual queen cell.  There were no nurse bees in attendance, so I concluded that it was probably dead. 
I did a newspaper combine of the bottom brood box onto #2 and the top brood box onto #3 leaving the queen cell intact.  On #3, out of laziness, I put the brood box on top of the vivaldi box and then realized I did not have an inner cover so I got a double screen board and used that, making sure that the entrance was on the top.
Now the good news!
There were 14 frames of capped honey in the supers of #1, so there will be a spring honey harvest!

Double screen out, or where's the door?

It has been nearly 4 weeks since putting a box with a laying queen on the box with the laying worker, separating them with a double screen board.  9 days ago I saw an egg in the bottom box so I left the double screen in place.  Now I figure it is time to finish the combining process.
After taking off the super, the top box and the screen, I took a look at one of the central frames from the bottom box.  I still saw ratty capped drone cells and what looked like emerging drones.  Then I noticed that they were dead drones.

I removed one but it looked normal, just dead.  If mites were responsible they were long gone.
I put the box with the queen on the bottom, then reassembled the hive with just one super.
Now the foragers that had been using the back door will need to find their way around to the front.  Too bad I can not just put up a sign pointing the way.

The back of #2 after removing the double screen board and the back door

#1 is possibly queenless

On April 6 I made a split from #1 by taking its queen, some nurse bees, brood, honey and pollen and putting them in a nuc.  There were plenty of eggs left for the bees to make a new queen.  The queen that had been put in the nuc eventually ended up in #2.  She is in the top brood box separated from the bottom with a double screen.  The bottom had a laying worker and when I last looked, 8 days ago, I saw an egg in the bottom box.  I soon will take out the double screen.  The foragers from the top box have been using a small entrance in the back so they will have to learn the new orientation.
#1 had been a strong colony and I figured that they would easily make a new queen and thrive.  I took a look in 3 days ago, 38 days after making the split.  It takes 16 days for a queen to emerge after the egg has been laid.  It then takes a couple of days to mate, maybe a week to rest and so one expects a laying queen in about 4 weeks, counting from laying.  So, naturally, I expected a laying queen.  I saw this:

Since you are all experts by now, you recognize this as a queen cell that has been opened on the side.  This is what an emerged queen will do to her yet to emerge sister queens.  So I knew that at least one queen had emerged.  Unfortunately, I did not see a her nor evidence of a laying queen (eggs and/or larvae). 
The time it takes to make a laying queen can frequently be five days longer and even longer if bad weather prevents the mating flight.  Still, 5 1/2 weeks is really stretching the limits.  I will check again in a couple of days.  If there is no queen I will just combine #1 with #2 & 3.  I have no more nucs, so the apiary will be short a hive.
By the way, Olea's hive seems to be thriving.  I have added several bars and they continue to make new comb.

It may seem like I know what I am doing

Today I checked the nuc-in-a-box to see if there was any queen activity.  I saw no eggs, larvae or brood cells and no queen.  I figured I should combine this hive with #2.  The question was how to do it.
I wanted to get the frames out of the box so that I could return it to Kathy (even though it was old and coming apart a bit at the corners), so at first I planned to take the frames from the (nuc) box and put them in the (#2) bottom box below the double screen board.  But there were still a lot of bees and capped drone cells.  Not enough room, or too much work, to follow plan A.  So what was plan B? 
I did not see any evidence of laying workers in the nuc, so I figured a newspaper combine would work.  Then I had to decide where to put the nuc box, above the bottom box with laying workers or above the box with the queen.  I figured that I still  need to keep the laying workers exposed to the queen and brood pheromones to suppress the laying workers ovaries.  One source said this can take 3 weeks and it has only been 10 days so far.  Now should it be placed over the brood box or hover the honey super?  Over the brood box.

Today's final set-up of #2.  Bottom brood box are the laying workers from queenless #2.  Next up is the double screen board.  The second brood box has the laying queen from the nuc I made with the queen from #1.  The two sheets of newspaper have 3 slits cut into them.  The funky box contains the queenless nuc-in-a-box.  The frames in there have a lot of pollen and honey.  When the combining is completed, I hope to swap the frames with resources into the other boxes.  On top is a honey super with hardly any honey.  I sprayed the bees that were still on it with Honey-B-Healthy and spritzed a bit into the box to minimize fighting.
Meanwhile... Foragers were returning to the site of their old hive.

What happened to our house?

Most experts say to move a hive either 2 feet or 2 miles.  And moving should be done at night when all the foragers have returned.  So what should I do with all these hard-working bees who are now homeless.
Well, I put a nuc with frames of drawn comb on the table and the bees quickly ran inside.

This evening I intend to cover the opening and move the nuc over near the other hives.  Of course, the box that these bees formerly called home has no opening so they will not be able to enter it.  Perhaps enough odor of home will pass through the slits in the newspaper and the two brood boxes to lure them in.  Or they will go into another hive.  Or something else.

The queen is dead, combine the nuc!

Today I looked into the nuc-in-a-box to see if the queen was finally laying.  I took out a frame at the edge and saw activity on the floor of the hive.  It looked like a queen surrounded by her court, except the queen was not moving.  I tried to extract her as the bees continued to surround and climb atop the queen.

After some time, I was able to retrieve the queen's carcass.  She is currently in a jar in the freezer.

There are a few possible explanations.  The bees killed this queen by balling because they did not like her or that there was another queen they liked better.  Or, the queen died for some other reason and they were all around her because of her pheromones and were trying to carry her out of the hive.  (I did see them dragging her towards the entrance.)  Or there is another queen in the hive that killed her.  In any case, I looked through the rest of the frames and saw no sign of laying.

Empty and polished cells awaiting eggs

In any case, I will wait to see what happens.  We can hope that there is another queen who will successfully mate.  I will check again in 2 weeks.
Then I took a look in the nuc I had made by splitting from #1 a couple of weeks ago.  I had put the queen from #1 in the nuc and left eggs and young larvae behind so a new queen could be made.  (In another week or so I will look to see if there is a laying queen.)  There was a lot of brood, eggs and larvae in the nuc.  I impetuously decided to put these bees into #2.  This expert does not recommend doing this to save a laying worker colony.  This one says it can work;  as a matter of fact, I sort of did it a way she suggests.
When combining hives, one is supposed to put the weaker hive on top of the stronger hive, leaving the stronger hive in its locale.  This would not work for me; I want the hive over with the others.  So this is what I did.
I covered the entrance of the nuc and took it over to the apiary.  I took all the boxes of #2 off the bottom board.  There were not many bees left in #2.  The bottom box had drawn comb with empty cell, most bees and drone brood were in the top brood box and the super was very light.  Then I thought.  If I put the nuc frames (the strong hive)  on the bottom, the returning foragers would fight with the nuc bees, so I put the top box of the weak hive (#2) on the bottom.  I shook the few bees that were on the empty comb from the bottom into the hive and then put a double screen board (that I had made) on top. I then took the frames from the once bottom box and cleaned the box by scraping off as much propolis and wax as I could.  I put the empty box on top of the double screen board with the entrance in the back relative to the other entrance.  Into the box I put the 5 frames from the nuc as well as 5 frames of drawn comb.  On top went the honey super and I closed it up.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch...  returning foragers wondered where their home had gone.

The bees are looking for their former home which had been on the pots

Later I did see a couple of bees go out the back entrance.  So, we will have to wait three weeks or so to see if this works.  Of course, if all the remaining bees of #2 die, I will remove the double screen board and reverse the boxes.  It's almost like I know what I'm doing.
It was pointed out to me that the hive stand holding #1 & 2 likely would not be able to hold the expected 150 pounds of honey, so I made braces.  Tomorrow I will put angle braces on to keep them in place.  I think this winter I will build new hive stands, either of metal pipe or 2x4s.

Nuc girls grow up and no reversal for #3

The recently made nuc was population was all nurse bees, other than the queen, of course.  Nurse bees do not forage or leave the hive until they are about 3 weeks old.  So there has been no flying in and out of the nuc, or at least very little.  Until today.  There they were doing orientation flights.

This does not show well the large number of bees orienting

I also saw pollen being brought into the nuc-now-in-a-box. 

Pollen being brought in indicates that there is brood which means that the queen is laying.  This is the queen that was made after the swarm a couple of weeks ago.  In a few more days I will check to make certain that the queen is laying and, if she is, combine the nuc-now-in-a-box with the remaining bees in #2.
#3 INSPECTION
The top super light so I concluded that there was little honey in it.  The lower super was heavy and there was quite a bit of brood in the central frames.

What a healthy brood pattern demonstrating the bands of pollen and capped honey around the capped brood.
There was brood also in the top brood box.  Two frames, both of which were foundationless, were all drone brood.

The frames in the bottom brood box were empty but for some pollen. 

Typical frame from bottom brood box

I decided not to reverse the boxes in this hive as I had done in #1, believing Rusty Burlew who writes a blog I referenced last post and the article she referred to.  I will keep an eye on #3 and let you know when the queen moves into the bottom box.  I did see something new to me- pollen in the middle of the brood.

I think that the workers are filling the cell after a bee emerges rather than preparing it for an egg so that the queen will not/cannot lay there and therefore will eventually have to move into the lower box.