Last year I gave almost a whole box of plastic frames 4.95 mm cellsize with natural positioning, http://www.elgon.es/diary/?p=384
This colony was a very nice colony, but needed some thymol as it came up with some wingless bees. It gave an average crop though. It wintered with the plastic in natural positioning as the upper third box full of honey. This was one of the few colonies I forgot to give the entrance reducer before winter so mice had created havoc in the bottom box. This seemed not to have set back the colony very much, unusual I would say. I thought about that: http://www.elgon.es/diary/?p=392
March 30 this year it looked very nice, http://www.elgon.es/diary/?p=404
In the uppermost super the combs were capped almost to the sides.
In June I harvested the first crop. It gave the highest crop in that apiary, together with one other colony, mostly from winter rape and dandelions. Both difficult crops if you wait too long before harvesting. They both form crystals quickly and have a very low water content making the honey viscous. All four boxes above the excluder was harvested – 60 kg (132 pounds). No signs of varroa or virus, no wingless bees and no thymol given. Out of 9 colonies in that apiary 6 have needed some thymol, up till now.
All the four supers above the excluder were harvested
A very good sign is the relatively clean piece of hardboard (0.5×0.5 meter, 20×20 inch) in front of the colony. Reading the hardboard is very informative about what’s happening in the colony. A few cleaned out drone pupae, a few dead drones and worker bees.