...leaning tower of honey

Today was the weekly check into my bees.  For the last two weeks, I have brought an extra super up to the hives thinking that Queen Penelope's hive would need a new box to move into.  She had started to lay in the second super, but I found her back in the bottom super.  She had laid about a 1/4 of a frame of brood.  There were still 3 frames that the bees had not started to draw out honey comb.  They recommend waiting until 6 of 8 are drawn out.  So, no new super for Penelope.

When I went into Queen Gertrude's hive, all of the frames in the second super had been drawn out. They are on a roll.  It is shocking that she is doing so well seeing as Gertrude's hive was so low on numbers, and she was replaced so late (a good two weeks after Penelope). I'm chalking it up to stealing brood from Penelope, and therefore delaying new workers being born in that hive. Queen Gertrude has taken the lead with 3 supers high.

Queen Gertrude on the left has taken the lead in height. There are an extra 2 supers on top of her stack for storage.  She is only living in 3 of the supers.