Two hives are behaving very differently still

[canterbury_keeper]

So another inspection today.

Hive 2 - I put a super on it last week as they'd filled the whole brood box with drawn comb, stores and brood.
They have started drawing out comb in the super, all foundationless.
Wondering if I should give them another brood box? I'm guessing not.
Anyway - not really worried about hive 2.

Hive 1 on the other hand...

They hadn't really drawn any new comb in the broad box, despite the presence of stores, eggs, larva etc. I moved an empty frame between a brood and a store frame. This seems to have worked, and they've drawn out 2/3s of the foundationless frame.

However, there is still 2 empty frames - they are much slower to increase their numbers than hive 2. Clearly not ready for a super.

Is this just something I should expect? Or is there something I should/could be doing to help hive 1 catch up with 2?

Thanks

Marc

 

[enrico]

Hives are different. My best hive works off seven frames of brood, never even bothers with drawing out the outer frames! Supercedes on summer after all the lime has finished. A perfect hive. My others are as different as chalk and cheese! You can't make them do what they don't want them to do!
E

 

[canterbury_keeper]

So maybe worth sticking a super on?

 

[itma]

You aren't making things easier by going "foundationless".

Wax making requires a lot of fuel (8 lb of honey per lb of wax) and perhaps more importantly, it requires a lot of bee-power.
You are asking a lot of a small colony to make ALL their wax. You can make their job easier (so they can do it quicker) if you give them a start with foundation.

Similarly, the thing is to get the brood nest well developed, producing lots of bees, before you start trying to develop crop storage in the super(s). Get the bee-power before you start applying it.
The brood nest mustn't be restricted by excess stores. If they are restricted and find that they have inadequate drawn comb for brood AND nectar evaporation, they will swarm, believe me!
Langstroth users frequently do employ a second (and sometimes even a third) brood box.
Once you have the bee-power, you might choose to apply it to wax-making, but you can't apply what you don't yet have.