Unusual configuration

This is the current configuration of #1.  This link discusses the common variations.  However, nowhere have I seen this set-up.  It did not come about by choice.  When I harvested the honey last fall there was still brood in the medium box so I left it.  I have checked many times and there has persistently been brood in the medium.  I left the bottom deep box in hopes that the queen and court would move into it.
Then I had my nuc.  I put the five frames into a deep box with follower boards to limit the space and put it in place of #3.  Well, as you faithful readers know, the colony lost its queen, so I used a newspaper combination in order to save the remaining bees.  I expected them to all move into the lower boxes and then I would take off the deep and have a single deep brood box.
So...
Yesterday I took a look into #1.  On previous inspections the bottom deep had only drawn comb and some honey and pollen.  If that had still been the case, I planned to do a lot of manipulation to get one deep brood box.  If the brood was gone from the medium, then I would rearrange to two deeps.
But the bees were not privy to my intentions.  There was brood in all three boxes!  I saw my (lovely) queen in the top deep box.  There was a fair amount of drone brood as well as worker in the bottom box.  What to do?  I added enough frames to make 10 in the top deep and left it as it was.
I did see a lot of uncapped drone brood and many with holes in the cap.

This picture is from another website and shows both uncapped larvae and caps with holes. 

I figured there must be a moderately high mite count.  Since I had intended to do a spring mite treatment anyway, I did not do a count but just put in Mite-away Quick strips.  I had to do some thinking about where to place them since the instructions say to place them between the two brood boxes; no suggestions for three boxes.  I did a bit of chemistry research and learned that formic acid fumes are heavier than air.  I put the strips between the medium and top super.  I also took out the entrance reducer to provide proper ventilation.

Olea's continues to go like gangbusters.  There were a total of 15 bars.  I saw brood on bar 14.  I added two more bars; 17 total now.

There continues to be sporadic activity around the swarm traps.

bees scouting the bait box

This is a close-up of the entrance to the bait box yesterday.  Today there is even more activity around the trapwith bees doing what looks like orientation flights and some guarding.  I took a look inside and there were many bees crawling around.  I tried unsuccessfully to see in which direction they were arriving and leaving.  If I had identified a "bee line"  I would have tried to find the swarm; that is if these are scouts from a swarm.  Assuming they are, I am hopeful that a swarm will be moving in soon.  However, check out this thread.
I attended a Bee Cafe meeting with Laura, a beekeeper to be.  The Sonoma County Beekeepers Association apparently has clusters and the meet at various homes.  The people were lovely and the food was delicious.  I learned about a swarm trap made from pulp pots and made one as soon as I could on returning home.

 All the holes but one are plugged with foam padding.  Inside is a piece of slumgum and a couple of drops of lemongrass oil.  The two pots are held together with wood screws.
I hung it in a tree in front.

After this picture was taken, I secured it to the tree with twine.
One needs to check this trap daily.  When a swarm moves into a new hive, it begins building comb right away.  Moving them would be difficult once there is comb.

It looks like spring has sprung, and, getting ready to split Olea's

 It looks like spring in the apiary.  Plants are beginning to leaf, the roses are putting out shoots, the bees are visiting the birdbath in numbers

and there is bee poop on the cars.
Olea's hive has survived with minimal treatment  soI have been wanting to split it.  The problem is that I want to put the split in a Langstroth hive; the bars and frames are not interchangeable.  There seem to be different ways to accomplish such a split.  Some of these seen quite elegant if not a bit too hard.  This one is done when a hive is about ready to swarm.  I thought of making a shook swarm.  This involves finding the queen and shaking her and a bunch of other bees into the split and leaving eggs in the top bar where the bees will make a  new queen.  I thought the easiest way would be to use the same method I have always done, i.e., move a couple of  combs with eggs and a couple of combs with honey and pollen into a box with a fifth frame of drawn comb.
I thought I would cut the selected combs off a top bar and hold them in a frame with rubber bands, as one does it collecting a cut out. 

Picture taken from another site

I posted a query on a beekeeping forum asking for advice from others who have done this.  One beek suggested just tying the entire top bar to a top of a Langstroth frame.  This seemed to be the easiest way, so today I did a trial.

Old top bar and a Langstroth top bar

Held together with rubber bands

 I had to see if it would fit as the top bars from Olea's are wider than the langs.

They all fit

 I had to figure how to space all the bars.  I put side bars on the langs and off-set the top bar bars so that they met each other and were flush with the langs on the outside edge.

The light wood are the langstroth tops and the dark wood between are the top bar bars

 I plan to make the split tomorrow when it is warm.
There were ants in #1!  The tanglefoot had lost its tangle.  I reapplied it the best I could (those dang cans make it difficult) to all the legs in the apiary, then spent some time killing ants that were crawling over the boxes.
I saw a couple of bees (at least two) looking at and in the bait box.  I do not know if they are scouts from a swarm (I hope) or just curious foragers.  I will find out in a couple of days.