Bee arrival

We couldn't manage to wait a whole week to inspect our bees, particularly as we were concerned that one of them had very little coming and going.
We opened them up and were not impressed with what we saw. A bee keeping friend came round to look also after we sent some photos. It seems there are fewer bees than there should be for what we bought - much more so in one hive than the other. The less worse hive is also not the sort of bee we bought it is a black bee rather than the buckfast. The black bee is a lot more agressive - though they can be very productive and are more hardy.
Looking at activity from the outside. The better but more agressive hive is on the left and the weaker but calmer on the right.

Preparing some insulation to go in the lid. It is useful in summer as much as winter as it helps stop the hive overheating

The frames where the bees should be laying eggs and keep their stores

There should be lots of sides covered like this but there are only 2 and a scattering of bees on a few other frames

Brood (baby bees). This is not a good coverage

Quite a few empty frames

We don't know yet whether the problem is just the number of bees the person we bought from put in to the hive or whether there is also a problem with the queen.