Crosswired super frames

After last weekend's check and lifting those heavy supers, I figured I should get some more supers on.  But I was also tired of breaking comb when extracting honey, so I bought some frame wire and tools to install it.  I put together a new super and new frames with foundation.  I don't know why it's taken me so long to try cross-wiring my frames; it wasn't that hard.  I bought a wire crimper that is helpful in making the wires very taut.  I don't have any equipment to embed the wires (melt them into the foundation), but for supers where they're just putting in honey, I'm hoping that won't be a problem and they'll just build out the comb around the wires.  Time will tell... I'd like to build an electric embedder, but not sure when I'll get around to it.

Since I only had one more super with 10 frames of foundation ready, on this weekend's trip to the hives, I split it up and swapped 2 or 3 foundation frames for full frames in each of the hives.

Hive A was looking a little better this week.  They had a couple queen cups with royal jelly that they didn't have last week, so it looks like they're working on raising a queen.  I swapped them a frame with eggs and larva from hive B, just to help out.

Hive B is doing just grand.

Hive C is starting to worry me a little.  I went through some of the deep frames closer and they didn't really have many eggs or brood.  What they did have looked good, but I decided to give them a boost as well and swapped a frame of eggs and brood from hive B into C.  I'll keep an eye on them and see if the egg laying increases.  Hive C did seem a bit more agitated than normal as I went through their frames, which can sometimes be a sign that they're not happy about their queen situation...

Hive D is still odd.  Lots of honey in the upper deep, but they're still keeping lots of comb open for the queen.  Heck, they didn't even start to draw out that brand new deep foundation frame I put in the center of the upper deep a week ago.  Like in hive C, what eggs, larva and capped cells I do see look good.  I was just expecting more of them...

I haven't seen any queens in C or D for a while, so maybe I should look closer for her next time.