Inspection at 5 weeks

[_Brenda_]

I checked my girls a few days ago and the second medium was almost full of honey, both capped and uncapped. No brood here.
The bottom medium, that had been so full of brood, now had a small amount of capped brood, (I saw one hatching!) and some drone brood around the bottoms of a few frames. All the previously hatched out brood comb was backfilled with nectar, mostly uncapped.
They had built some burr comb between the top mediums frame bottoms and the bottom mediums top frames, which had some larvae in them. I scraped these off, even though I hated the thought of losing the larvae.
I still haven't seen the queen, although I know she was going gangbusters 2 weeks ago.
I added another medium to the top and am hoping they will start building brood comb again.
Now I'm wondering if I should have switched the full medium of nectar/honey with the new medium? (put the new undrawn medium in the middle of the 3)
They should move up, right? Then maybe I should switch out the mediums in some fashion?
Kind of confused here, but want them to be building up brood. I was surprised to see the second super almost full of honey.
 
No queen cells anywhere. I made sure to look to for any queen cells.
I intend to check them again about Wedensday and see how things look.

[Moonshae]

Generally, you add the next box when the top box has 7 drawn frames, so you might have waited a bit too long. With so much space devoted to nectar storage, the queen probably doesn't have any place to lay. It would probably be a good idea to put the new box in the middle, closer to where the brood is. The queen often won't cross honey.

[_Brenda_]

That's what I thought too. When I check them, I'll make sure the queen isn't in the second super and I'll switch those 2 out.
I just didn't expect them to fill a medium with nectar, so quickly.
 :shock:
We must be in a flow here.

[Two Bees]

I agree with Moonshae.  I am assuming that you are using three mediums for your brood chambers so placing the new medium between the bottom brood box and the box where the girls have been storing nectar is the way to go.  Your bees may even move some of the nectar from the top medium into the middle medium once they have drawn out comb and the queen has started laying in the middle box.

[_Brenda_]

Yes, I'm using all mediums. I was planning on switching them this morning, if the rain stops.
I also need to add a AJ's beetle eater and remove the entrance reducer, so will try to remember to do all this morning. It's getting so I have to tie a string around my finger.  :-D

[_Brenda_]

Ok, I got the mediums switched, removed the reducer (I almost forgot this one!), and added the beetle eater.
They had already started drawing comb and filling with nectar on the newest
super.
When I checked the bottom super, they had some empty comb and new capped brood cells. For some reason they are building drone comb on the bottom of the frames in the center. Then when I lift those frames it pulls the comb and larvae out.
I hope it doesn't hurt to use oil that had a sprig of tarragon in it, for the beetle eater. That's all I had.