Having read these good posts, I reconfigured my two bait hives this morning.
I had them all full of drawn comb: a deep and medium - both full of frames from dead-outs - of which I had plenty after a disastrous last year.
Doped them up for swarms to move in but no takers so far.
This morning I took all the frames out of both hives. Started over with a mixture of drawn, new cell rite, starter strips, and old frames. Must have had frames and boxes of them strewn out everywhere!
Put an empty deep on the bottom to make the scouts happy in their quest for 40 liters.
From the medium over it I went two ways.
In one, I hung 2 deep drawn frames on the outsides. Then there are medium-depth frames: 2 drawn in the middle, 2 starter strips outside of that, 2 cell rite blanks, and 2 old.
In the other, there are 2 deep drawn frames in the middle and the mix of medium-depth frames toward the outside.
Re-dosed with Lemongrass oil.
I plan to check frequently.
Changes made:
Got up this morning with one of those "duh" moments.
Why intrude on the deep hive body space with deep frames hanging down into it from the medium super above?
So, pulled the deep frames and put in all medium frames in the medium super, leaving the deep hive body empty.
If it catches a swarm you can just fill the deep with frames and they'll eventually move into it.
If I were a bee, I'd want to swarm right in there!