Are the frames made out of plastic. Usually the frames are made out of wood with plastic foundation. If you can, please post a picture of your frame so that your problem can be better understood and a solution recommended.

The frames that came with ny nuc are plastic. My frames are wood with wax foundation.

How long ago did you install the nucs? Looking at the picture, I see only three plastic frames. Is that what you got from the breeder? Did you happen to notice your bees "swarm". I suggest you add a "honey super" immediately to your hive. Then put the inner cover on top of the honey super. The bees tend to glue the inner cover to the brood chamber with propolis to protect the brood. Moving the inner cover to the second level honey super will reduce this behavior in my opinion. Also if it is nectar flow time in your area, stop feeding sugar syrup immediately. I notice you have left your entrance wide open without the entrance reducer. I suggest putting the entrance reducer back on with the three inch opening since your colony is small.

I am also new to bee keeping. I started off with two hives. My bees swarmed in mid May. I was able to catch the swarms and put it into new hives. Since both my original hives swarmed and since I was able to catch both the swarms, I have four hives now. I don't feed them sugar syrup anymore. It is nectar flow time in my area. I check my hives weekly. I see a flourishing brood. And the bees are building combs to store honey in the honey super. For your info, I too got nucs. But I got 5 nucs for each hive.

Thanks for your input! How did you catch your swarms? That's great that you were able to do that!

It is relatively easy to catch the swarms. Just have to be watching the hive often to see if they will swarm. I was mowing my lawn and noticed unusual activity around one hive. I started looking around and saw this swarm hanging from a small bush three feet above ground on a kausa dog wood tree.

I immediately sprayed the ball of bees with light sugar syrup, brought a cardboard box and gave a sharp tap to the branch they were clumped on to. The whole ball fell into the box. I took the box and dumped the bees into an extra hive I had lying around. The bees settled down into the new hive in the next couple of hours. The stragglers soon found their way into the hive by the end of the day. The swarm was not at all aggressive. I could have done it without the veil. It has been three weeks now. The colony has established itself. I see good hive activity. The second swarm was 15 feet up in a pine tree. Same method used. I climbed up using a ladder. That hive is flourishing as well.

May-June is the time when colonies swarm in my area. Piece of advice for you. Have couple of empty hives ready just in case you locate a swarm. In my area, package bees sell for $150.00 to $200.00. So I ended up with a net savings of $300.00 to $400.00. I have since sold one hive with the bees inside for $350.00.