first inspection problems. Help!

[beepig]

Hello all,
I need help.
I carried out my first inspection yesterday in glorious weather, only to be suprised by my findings.
1. first colony have been reasonably busy all spring but i did notice a while ago a number of drones at entrance.
2. on opening i noticed that brood box was still full of stores only three frames up front with brood space. the frames with scattered brood were all drone brood. i did see the queen but left her for now.
3. i removed the super from beneath the brood box as was completely empty!
4. put back together just with brood queen excluder and empty super.
5. Bees seemed quite larthargic at entrance too.
6. Should i buy a queen now?
7. how do i have before colony collapse
8. should i remove more stores and replace with foundation
9. will the bees begin moving honey up to super

Hive 2.
1. on opening saw that again brood was almost full of stores and front two frames contained scattered capped brood and open larvae. again not great shape
2. removed empty super from below brood box and added a brand new floor as entrance broken
3. over last few warm days these bees have been incredibly busy queing to bring in pollen. a number of frames are full of pollen.
4. i placed the empty super on top of brood without queen excluder
5, Did not see much evidence of disease, that i know of or queen cells.
6. But colony does not appear to be growing very quickly.
7. What can i do.

I am not affiliated to a BKA

 

[Finman]

.
First get a new queen, if you can. Or buy a nuc.
Brood box is full of stores. No idea to put new queen to lay in it.

Put the queen onto super combs and shake workers there too. Arrange food to the colony.

Colony will decline fast because it has no worker brood.

Take the drone queen off that bees do not waste their energy to drone brood.

 

[Nige.Coll]

This is what I would do. I'm still a beginner myself.

I'm assuming that the hives are at the same site and close together and entrance is still quite small. If not close together move them next to each other for a day. 3 feet 3 mile rule.

Hive 1
Establish if you have a dlq or laying workers.
Eggs on sides of cells or multiple eggs in cells normally means laying workers.
If dlq kill her and leave them for a day. If laying workers no need to wait.
Move hive 1 away from its position.
Shake them out on the ground 20 feet or so away from hive 2.
Take frames and remove drone brood from frames suitable for adding to hive 2. Add empty frames to hive 2 and remove some stores.
Remove the super after increasing space in brood box add insulation under roof if you have any.

If im wrong then no doubt someone will tell me.
Bee gentle I'm only trying to help lol

 

[weatherman1200]

If you can get a swarm it will sove you problems I will be collecting swarms very soon I in Paulton

 

[Nige.Coll]

I'm a realist not an optimist I'm afraid.
Hive 1 is doomed may aswell make some use of their remaining life.

Is hive 2 a small colony ? Do you have a poly nuc handy ?

 

[enrico]

What I would do is find the queen that is laying drones and kill her. Squirt air freshner in both hives and combine the lot. Any flying bees will find their way back to the only hive you now have, make sure the QE is above the two box's that you have combined so you don't get drones stuck above it, QE then super on top. That is what I did two weeks ago in a similar situation and all is now well.
E

 

[Finman]

.
OK

Under your avatar you have 1 hive and in text you have endeed 2 hives.

In this case I kill the drone layer. Then I keep the hive gueenless 1-2 days.
I take drone combs away. There are mites in brood.

Then I join the hives.
I put the queen under "push in cage" that queen has safe during joining.

That is my procerude in there cases.