[Hobie]

I'm a little late getting to this, I know, but I finally had time to peek in yesterday. I admit I did not do a thorough inspection because they were pretty testy and buzzing my veil by the end. Here's the findings and a question:

The set up is one deep with 4 shallows on top. Top shallow was heavy on one side with mostly nectar and some capped honey. Full of bees. Shallow #2 was full. Did not dig into this one to see if it was brood or honey. Between Shallows 2 & 3 was burr comb with drone brood that I pulled apart. Shallow 3 mostly brood. Shallow #4 slightly lighter, but again I did not look into this one. All shallows 2-4 had at least 8 frames of bees The comb in the bottom deep is nearly empty, but there were about 4 frames of bees down there, and some patchy brood in the two frames I pulled.
The SBB was littered with little white larvae carcasses - I suspect this weather caused chilled brood.

Since the deep was not empty, I did not move or remove it. Cleaned off the SBB and restacked in same order. My question is this: Given that the bottom is nearly empty and the top nearly full, when do I want to put on a super? I would like to encourage them back down into the deep, but would prefer they did not swarm away.

 

[PerryBee]

The theory is if you leave them alone, they will backfill from the top down and force the queen into your deep. You say shallow # 2 is full, do you mean with bees, capped honey, brood, etc.? (Sorry, just reread that you did not dig into this one). If there is a lot of capped honey still in the hive and the bees haven't moved down, I might be inclined to super, till I had a chance to thoroughly go thru and rearrange things, just in case they get it in their heads to swarm.

 

[Iddee]

If there are 10 frames of capped honey, I would harvest one super.
Then I would find the queen and put the super she is in on top the deep.