Hive not doing well after overwintering, small surviving cluster. How to fix?

[Alklar20]

Hello, everyone. I had two hives last year. One survived the winter, and the other didn't. I inspected the surviving hive today and found the following:

• The surviving bees in a cluster on just 3 or so frames. I'd say the cluster was just slightly smaller than a football.
• Low amounts of both honey and pollen.
• Only 1 frame with brood; the surface area the brood covered could fit in the palm of your hand. It was a mixture of capped brood and larvae. I didn't get a good enough look at the frame, so I didn't see any eggs, but I did notice some young larvae, so I'm presuming there was a laying queen.

The hive currently consists of just a single hive body (plus a quilt).

What I Need To Know:
This hive clearly needs to be fed. I have plenty of sugar on hand at the moment, but I also have the hive that died overwinter, which has lots of honey leftover. But there's just one thing I'm concerned about: there is a tiny amount of mold growing on the frames. If I were to put a hive body full of frames of honey taken from the dead hive on top of the live one, would the mold harm the bees? Or would the bees just clean up the mold and use the honey like any other honey they would have?

If it is okay to use the honey from the dead hive, another concern I have is the massive amount of space the new hive body would create for the already weakened hive. Based on the information I gave you about the surviving cluster, would it be a bad idea to go through with the aforementioned plan?

Given the low amount of pollen remaining in the hive, I'm considering feeding pollen substitute to make up for this. Should I feed substitute, or is there enough pollen coming in right now for the hive to be fine on its own?

Given the low amount of bees in the hive right now, I need to know ways to expand the hive's population. Should I do stimulative feeding? If so, how should I go through with it? Should I boost the hive's population by ordering a package, or is it not worth the cost? (If I were to go with the package method, I'm presuming the empty space the hive body full of honey would create wouldn't be an issue.) Also, are there any other ways I could boost the hive's population?

[iddee]

First, that is a fair size cluster for this time of the year that far north. In fact, if they are russians, it is a large cluster.

Give them honey from the dead hive. The mold won't bother them at all.Give them a pollen sub patty about 2 in. X 4 in. If it is gone in 3 to 5 days, give them another one. Don't feed large patties. SHB loves it and will hatch larvae in about 7 days.

If you are worried about the extra space, put the honey under the deep and they will move it up into the deep. Then you can remove the super.

Any more questions, fire away. It's the time of year when the forum needs a boost, too.

 

[Zweefer]

Once again, iddee has it pretty much covered.
I would add in my area of northwestern WI, I’d be thrilled to have 3 frames of bees overwinter. 

[Jen]

Hello Alklar, I have nurse many spring colonies the size of a grapefruit back to a healthy booming hive. I'm not a commercial beekeeper so I can take my time and let the bees rebuild naturally.

I am a advocate for in the spring, find both the queen and find eggs! It's not that hard with a small colony.

If the queen isn't laying many eggs it's because there aren't enough nurse bees to tend the eggs. She needs to see that there are enough nurse bees to completely blanket all the eggs. If you know of another beekeeper in your area, you could purchase a frame of brood/larvae/eggs and insert it into your small colony. In just a few short weeks that would be close to 6,000 (medium frame) more bees, or 9,000 (deep frame) added to your small colony. Now the queen is going to go town laying more eggs.

Remember! If you get a donor frame from one of your hives or someone else's hives ... be sure the queen from the donor hive is not on your purchased donor frame 

[Alklar20]

If the queen isn't laying many eggs it's because there aren't enough nurse bees to tend the eggs. She needs to see that there are enough nurse bees to completely blanket all the eggs. If you know of another beekeeper in your area, you could purchase a frame of brood/larvae/eggs and insert it into your small colony. In just a few short weeks that would be close to 6,000 (medium frame) more bees, or 9,000 (deep frame) added to your small colony. Now the queen is going to go town laying more eggs.

I stated in my post above "I did notice some young larvae," and by young, I mean probably 1-3 days old, so I probably had a laying queen less than a week before the date of my post (3/16/2022).