During this week's hive checks, I noticed most of the honeycomb cells were full of brood, pollen, or sugarwater stores. This indicates my colonies need more "bee space".
Bee space can be added in two ways:
1) Add another box to the bottom of the hive, keeping the original brood box on the top of the hive to prevent chalkbrood. Chalkbrood can be resolved when cold and/or wet conditions change back to a proper balance, however, it slows down healthy population growth and colony efficiency.
2)Turning frames with bare foundation towards the brood nest, making sure you don't divide frames with brood on them (brood frames are those with honeycomb cells containing eggs, larva, or pupa).
Read up about chalkbrood here:
http://www.cornwallhoney.co.uk/beepedia/chalkbrood.htm
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