First Inspection this Spring

[billdean]

The first inspection this early spring and I am questioning what I found. All 4 of my hives came though winter in great shape with tons of bees in the hives. Thats the problem or maybe? There are so many bees confined in each hive. My hives are 4 medium boxes each. I found quite a little honey left from winter. A lot of the frames have had the honey cleaned or ate out of the center of the frame, and they left a band honey around the out side of the frames. Only a handful of actual broad cell were found. It appears they are getting the broad nest ready for the queen to lay in. There is no nectar coming in yet as it is pretty early and pollen just started showing up a couple of days ago. My question is I am worried about the bees swarming do to what I perceive as overly crowded hives. There is lots of empty cells for the queen to lay in. Will bees swarm from over crowded hive bodies this early in the season? I thought about putting another hive body on but I do not have any drawn comb.

[cao]

If there are empty cells for the queen to lay than I doubt that they are ready to swarm.  The queen is probably just getting ready to ramp up egg laying(waiting for nectar).  If those empty cells get packed full of nectar and the hive is full of bees then they might swarm. 

[Acebird]

I assume the bees are in the top box.  What I would do is not touch the hive until you see them filling that top box.  Only then would I add another box and if it is foundation I would pull up a couple of frames.  That honey on the outside is what they will raise their brood on until nectar comes in.  Are you seeing pollen?

[billdean]

I assume the bees are in the top box.  What I would do is not touch the hive until you see them filling that top box.  Only then would I add another box and if it is foundation I would pull up a couple of frames.  That honey on the outside is what they will raise their brood on until nectar comes in.  Are you seeing pollen?

The bees encompass 7 frames in each of the top 3 boxes boxes. I run 8 frame mediums. A little Pollen has just started. The maple trees are barley starting to open. I have reversed the boxes and cleaned the bottom boards. I have also put slatted racks on each hive. All done on a warm beautiful sunny day. I have one more hive I will be doing in the next couple days, weather permitting and will take some pictures of this one to post.

[Acebird]

I never do reversals with 8 frame mediums because you typically have 4 or 5 boxes in the stack.  I may remove the bottom box and add a super of honey frames to the top but I wouldn't do it this early.  I want nectar coming in before I rearrange the hive.  And that usually means they are going gang busters.