Well I checked the hive today.
They are filling the inner top cover with comb.
They have effectively filled 5 frames. Capped brood. Honey pollen - but don't seem to be expanding to the rest of the other frames.
It seems they are spending their energy building all this comb in the inside of the top cover. I had to shake off the bees from the inner cover there were so many up there.
Should I try dropping a drone frame - or foundationless frame on the outer frame?
This might be the answer is your inner cover on the right way the small side is supposed to go down
How much space is there between the top of the inner cover and the cover? (I assume this is the space you say they are building comb). If it's over 3/8" they will build comb in it.
Well the problem was very simple:
I have a delux cover - deep enough to feed.
Well that sucks.
I have set up a screen to prevent further bees from getting up in there.
They built so much comb in there. Shame.
Thanks guys.
Could be they are running out of room - frames don't have to be 100% full for them to look for more space. When they run out of room they swarm. Check for swarm cells.
They have lots of empty frames - but yes to be sure I added the second box of frames today too.
I just went and put that screen over the inner cover - they were already trying to build more comb in the little hole.
Move the2 outer filled frames out one space and an empty frame in, like this. F, E, FFF, E, F.
I'm going to try that :)