My package won't draw foundation!

A question from a new beekeeper:

We got both of our new packages installed on the 17th. After installing the bees we checked on them a week later and noticed some odd things that each of the new hives are doing.

Our new hive at home, drank most of their syrup and stored it in the frames. Most are used frames and a few have new duragilt foundation. They did not leave any room for the queen to lay! On one of the new frames they had built burr comb from the top of the wooden frame down, instead of actually building onto the foundation. This is where the queen began laying eggs. The burr comb is not in our way, however we have never seen this before; they wanted nothing to do with the foundation and built their own! Why are they not allowing the queen to lay in the old drawn out comb?

The other new hive is farther away, it has its own idiosyncrasies. The queen is alive, we spotted her. However, the workers have not drawn out the foundation; this is the basic yellow foundation (not duragilt). So this queen has no place to lay eggs. The weather was not the greatest and it is a bit colder up there. Do we just give it another week? Why aren't the workers giving the queen proper laying space?

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My response:

The lack of drawn comb is one of the common problems a new hive can have. When working on these hives don't keep the hive open for too long and don't open it too frequently. Also don't use too much smoke, a hive without brood may abscond if they are overly disrupted.

For your new hive at home be sure to provide space for comb to be drawn, you can tell that the workers want to make comb because of the burr comb they are making. You just need to give them a beekeeper approved place do to so. Move the frames that are full of sugar to the outside of the box and put a frame of foundation (or an empty frame) in the middle of the box. Within 48 hours the queen will have started laying on the new comb the workers will build.

For the hive that isn't building comb, when you open the hive do you see bees joining legs with each other? That is a sign that they are making comb so everything is in order. With the poor weather we've had they probably haven't had a chance to collect any nectar and without sugar to fuel the wax production they won't be able to draw comb. It takes five pounds of sugar to make one pound of wax, that's a lot of nectar. This is why most beekeepers feed sugar syrup to a new package, eventually they will collect nectar and turn it into wax but that requires good weather.

Thanks for the questions and good luck getting these hives going! I'm getting three queens on Friday that I'll be using to make splits with.