beginner questions

[KONASDAD]

The last few evenings I have been unable to sleep. I walked the dog at 3AM, and the bees were on the front of the lower deep. Only the front, and one bee deep or thick, not bearding. In the day only a few hundred may be on the front. This is the coolest part of the day. Why would they be outside at that time (3AM) of the day in numbers 15 or 20 times the number than at 4PM? My lower deep is very thick. I have two boards that must be 4in thick and it makes for a crowded lower deep. My upper deep is more spacious and  more evenly distributed.

I also added a super and for two weeks almost nothing. Now it has exploded. My hive is new, and I have no drawn foundation so they are drawing it out. Since i am in my first year, should i add another super before they store honey so they would have less work next season and forgo any harvest? or wait for 80% to be filled and capped, then add a nother super and let next years hives do their fair share? My goals for this year are survival first, and then honey.

[Kris^]

My thinking would be that in the afternoon, most of the foragers are out, whereas at 3 am, they are all home.  If the foragers comprise even 1/3 of the total population, that would be a significant number, and would swell the nightime population.

As for adding a super, I'd wait until they drew at least 8 frames in the upper box.  Otherwise, you could run into the situation where they build straight up, leaving the outer frames of both boxes undrawn.  And don't necessarily give up on a harvest this year, either.  I ended up last year getting 72 lbs. from a hive I started from a 3# package.  You started ahead of the curve with a full one box hive.

-- Kris

[Brian D. Bray]

The bees will turn the second box into a brood box just like the 1st box.  this is normal and running two deep boxes is a very common practice.  Expect to find evidence of the queen's activity in the 2nd box soon if you haven't already.  
Here in the PNW it is customery not to have 2 deeps as brood and then start counting the harvestable supers.
If you are experiencing a lot of bearding you might try putting on a slatted rack, this will enable a large portion of those bees to spend the night indoors and aleave the over crowding that could lead to swarming regardless of whether or not all the frames are drawn.