I’m a first year beekeeper also. My bees favored the entrance side of the entrance reducer. Even after removing it, they still weren't touching 3 frames on the other side. Frame # 1, 8,9,10 were completely empty. I took out frame 10, slid all the frames to the right and reinserted it in # 1 location. Basically just shifted everything 1 frame over. After doing that, they began to work both side equally. I wasn’t sure if it was the right thing to do at the time but it made sense. I figured they’d forgive me if it wasn’t.
Richard