New Boxes & Dead Hives

I spent the afternoon today conducting a big inspection of the hives.  This was prompted by several factors including buying new hive boxes from Jason Weaver down at St. Peter.  So now all my hives have two deep supers to build up with honey for the fall nectar flow.  I also found hives #3 and #10 were dead or nearly dead.  They had not been doing well for quite some time, so this didn't surprise me too much.  I installed the last mating nuc into the site of Hive #3 and the new Buzzard Swarm into the site of Hive #10.  They each received fresh boxes and frames.  The frames in these new cypress boxes have white plasticell foundation with a deeper impression to encourage the bees to draw out comb better/faster.  We'll have to see if that works, but I do know one thing for sure, the swarm really took to the new frames!