I would not be playing with the bottom board. Your bees have taken a really big hit and need to set their hive up as they need. When we think of ventillation we are thinking in human terms, bees think differently. My big hives have solid bottom boards, a 1x10cm entrance and a baffled vent in the quilt 1" in diameter. This is enough for our summers with temperatures regularly over 40C.
Let them settle and build up.
Cheers
Rob.
I know I keep going on about the entrance size but this is how I like to see them. This hive is three eight frame boxes with about half the top box empty so its not little. They will go through summer on this entrance size.
Cheers
Rob.
Oh my shattered nerves! There were SO many bees; not even space for a single one more. 
What a process! I’m still shaking. It was a proper cut-out. Had to remove 12 combs and fasten them to the frames using rubber bands. Plenty of stores and a tight brood pattern. I did not have time to photo document everything as I felt time was of the essence. I feel so guilty for disrupting the colony so.
There are loads of them sitting on the outside now and some even forming a curtain off the bottom board. Should I scoop them up and pour them into the brood box? The entrance reducer is installed which might mean they are taking much longer than usual to enter the hive.
Phew! It looks like they’re moving inside, slowly but surely. 
A lot of pollen stayed behind on the inner cover. My first thought would be to remove it and feed it back to them, but I wouldn’t know how.
Love,
A thoroughly knackered Deon
Good work. Is the top box for a feeder?
Cheers
Rob.
Thanks! Yes, it is. I’m not planning on feeding for long as they’re quite strong. How long do you think I should keep on feeding them?
D
You should feed as little as possible. Add a bit of food colour to your food so you can tell when they are bringing in nectar. If they start filling the brood nest with syrup, stop. Its a balancing act.
Cheers
Rob.
That’s a good tip.
I look for capped stores. As soon as any is capped at all then stop.
Apart from winter time, of course
@Dee There are loads of pieces of comb still attached to the inner cover of the nuc I transferred on Sunday with lots of nectar and a plethora of pollen. Do I feed it back to them?
I have been spending a great deal of time reading up on treatment-free practices, listening to various podcasts and also watching videos on this topic; all propose being very judicious and frugal with feeding and only when absolutely necessary. So thanks to your impetus @Rmcpb the message has hit home. I shall remove the feeders posthaste. I would just like to open up the weaker hive on Thursday (which is a week after I transferred them) to see how they are getting on.
Cheers
Deon
Yes I would …
Yep, need to be checked but pick a warm day and be quick. Don’t rearrange anything unless you have cross comb. Just a quick squiz.
Cheers
Rob.
PS. The colour in the syrup also lets you see if any of it ends up in your honey. You can leave that for the bees 
Good morning beautiful people
So my inspection last week went as follows:
Hive #1 (Strong):
This hive is the one where I removed multiple combs from the inner cover of their nucleus and attached them to frames with rubber bands before transferring them to a ten frame deep.
On inspecting a week later, I was unable to lift the frames out of the box, as, I suspect, some of the comb shifted. I did not plan for this eventuality, and because I didn’t want to enter without a plan, I closed up.
When I checked the activity outside the hive this morning, I found some of the rubber bands on the grass below the entrance. I am planning on going in again today and rearranging + fixing where necessary.
Hive #2 (Weaker):
I was pleasantly surprised to see the combs looking healthy, with more than enough nectar stores and mostly capped brood. It was also a big sigh of relief to find eggs and also find the bees festooning on one of the adjacent frames. I did some cleaning up and closed up with a smile.
Feeders and super boxes were removed from both hives.
This was last weekend. I need to go in again today to fix hive #1 but would it be necessary to check the second, weaker, hive once more? I want to make a proper, aka non-improvised, entrance reducer for the flow hive (which is hive #2), but I don’t believe this would cause too much disruption. I just need to find the dimentions for the reducer…
Have a lovely day
Deon
Well done, however why not keep the improvised entrance reducer long term? I’m using strips of latex foam rubber at the moment. It works fantastic. I wouldn’t recommend it in a smoker though.
Yes my bees don’t like elastic bands either. If I have to repair a frame in situ they always throw them out.
Thanks!
I’ve come up with a different solution: the Cape bee is known for its profuse use of propolis. I scraped propolis and some wax off their previous nuc, heated it up and made one long strip, which I placed over the entrance. I also needed to remove the orange bag as their legs kept gettig stuck.
I found my first drone! He was chilling out on the perimeter fence.
Unfortunately I also found some bees with deformed wings. It almost looked like a butterfly’s folded wings after they emerge from their cocoons.
Does a colony expell these bees?
Regards
Deon
Hi Deon, I’m not all that familiar with deformed wings. I think it has something to do with varroa mites. You could need some advice from @Dee or @Dawn_SD.
Answering my own question. They do indeed expell these bees.
Deformed wings are most commonly from Varroa allowing DWV to infect the developing bee. The other possibility is K-wing deformity associated with tracheal mites. The k-wing deformity looks quite different from DWV.
Here is DWV, note that the wings look shriveled and twisted. This is a very severe example, they can be less affected than this, but the shriveling and twisting is very characteristic:
Here is K-wing:
I can’t enlarge your photos enough to see the deformity clearly, but if you think it is DWV, you need to treat for Varroa ASAP. Many colonies with significant DWV will not last a year. If you think it is K-wing, you need to treat for tracheal mites, which is slightly different from Varroa treatment, and involves making up grease patties with powdered sugar.
Not DWV
Those bees have dislocated wings which you see with Acarine and with Paralysus Virus. Sometimes they appear for no reason. Yes the bees turf the out
