I hived my 2 pound packages on April 9th. They started very quick and there were a lot of eggs. However, after two weeks they slowed down quite a bit. The queens are keeping each cell full of eggs but they just are not making any more comb....or they are doing it very slow. I thought they would be ready last week but the first two I checked were not progressing. I chalked it up to not enough bees to keep progressing.
Well today I opened the other two that have not been open for a couple of weeks. They are full of bees and one has 8 full combs drawn and two with nothing. So, I added another brood box. Hope the timing was right. The other had 6 full frames of comb and two quarter frames comb with the rest empty. So, I didn't add the second box.
The two that I had opened last week had 6 full frames of brood and 4 empty. They were starting on the 7th frame but not much. Every box had twice as many bees as before and they all had eggs so the queens are doing good. Maybe the hives will grow faster now that there are new bees.
Now for the great news: I had left the hive top feeder with no feed and they had built some comb with honey. So, I harvested that honey for me when I removed the feeder. I got 3/4 of a jar! Boy is it good.