Adding second box

Ready for second box

I was out feeding bees today on my day off. I have about 15 hives from the first delivery of packages. I have not looked at them in a while. All of the hive looked great. I had 5 to 6 frames of brood in various stages (eggs, larvae and capped). The bees were pretty much covering the top bars on all frames. The picture above is a very nice single box with bees covering 8 frames. Time to add another box to give them room to increase the brood nest. The cool weather we have had has made it a little more difficult for the bees to expand the brood nest. This upcoming week has temps in the 70's and lo 80's. This will greatly help the bees.
Looked at some other colonies of mine from the second delivery of packages. They were doing great and should be ready for their second box in about 5 days.
 I went over to a neighbors bee yard to look at his bees. He is new this year and wanted to make sure everything was working.
 I smoked the entrance, lifted the cover, smoked underneath it, removed the cover, smoked the inner cover hole, lifted the inner cover and smoked underneath that. This is how I enter a hive.
At first glance I saw no feeder:
Jim: Where is the feeder?
new beekeeper: I thought I was done feeding.
Jim: When drawing foundation on new colonies you need to feed syrup from the time you put the bees in until the first of July or until the foundation is all drawn out, whichever comes first.
New beekeeper hives were on the second delivery.  His beeyard was very nice, the hives had a custom copper roof that he had built. I looked at his frames that he put together and they looked well constructed.
The hives were set back a little by not feeding and they had not expanded their brood nest because the bees could not make beeswax without the syrup.
One hive was doing ok the second hive was a little better but with some syrup they both should be ready for another box in about 10 days. A little more time and I could tell that they will perk right up.