Deep national brood box installed

I took advantage of the unusually warm 16celcius out today and headed to the apiary to swap the deep national brood box onto Hive Amidala. I was nervous about how it would work out. Here was the plan: to add the deep brood box to the bottom of the hive with the old brood box above the queen excluder (and a super above that - rather big for this stage in the season, but I already had the super on). To execute the plan I could have tried to shake all the bees into the deep brood box, but I decided this was too disruptive, so instead here's what I did. I set a crown board on the ground next to the hive and put the empty deep brood box on top, removing one of the freshly made up frames. Then I opened the hive (it was looking great in there - the super was half full of working bees which I immediately spied though my new swanky glass crown board) until the old brood box was exposed. I then inspected the frames (middle ones only) looking for the queen. I saw lots of honey, lots of pollen, and eggs and larvae in all stages of development. It looks as if this colony is as vigorous this year as last. However, I failed to spot the queen on the first pass. On the 4th frame of the second pass I spotted her and quickly put that frame into the deep super and covered it with a queen excluder. Got her! Of course the bees will make a mess below this shorter-than-box frame, but I can deal with that in subsequent weeks and migrate this frame to the sides and out. I then quickly lifted the old brood box off the stand, whacked the deep brood box (queen and all) onto the stand and quickly followed with queen excluder, old brood box, super, glass crown board and roof. Done. And there's the photo to prove it. I'm pretty happy with how that all went and with the general health of the colony. I'm looking forward to inspecting progress in a week or so, by which time I hope the bees will have drawn a decent amount of comb in the new brood box, and perhaps the queen will have started laying. Fingers crossed. Will this also reduce any swarming instinct? I do not know.

I also took some time to open Hive Boudicca. This colony is at the other end of the vigour scale from its neighbour. The super was empty, and the brood box (standard depth) had a fair few bees but only on the middle 5/6 frames. I saw the queen, larvae both capped and uncapped and a fair supply of honey and pollen. Am I concerned? I just don't know. Hive Boudicca is way behind Hive Amidala, but it's still early in the season. Worth keeping an eye on, and I should probably do a varroa count in the near future. I almost would not mind so much if Hive Boudicca's inhabitants were half as nice as their neighbours, but they are grumpy too. A more experienced beek would probably replace the queen at this stage. I'm going to keep this thought in mind......