There's a Hole in my Hive

The bees finally seem to be occupying the top deep. There seems to be comb drawn on 6 of the 9 frames I peeked at in the top deep, though I didn't do a very thurough inspection of the top box because the bees were being a little grouchy again. I need to try to get through my inspections more quickly so the bees don't get as angry towards the end.

I removed the board feeder that I had in the top deep (which takes the space of one of the regular frames) and wanted to put on the hive top feeder, but noticed that my top deep is not really level in the back (pictured below). You can see that the side of the deep is a little bit (1/8" to 1/4") higher than the back wall of the deep.

Looking at how the inner cover sits on top of the deep, you can see that there is a hole all the way along the back edge of the deep:

I was a bit worried about leaving the hive open like that, so I didn't put on the hivetop feeder this time (but I did leave the board feeder out. The bees have plenty of pollen and nectar right now, so I am not worried about leaving them without food. I have been feeding them extra so that they can build honey comb faster). I'll send an email to Cheryl at Bear Foot Honey to see if that is ok, or if I have to repair the deep. I know that bees fill holes that are smaller than 3/8", but this seems like a pretty long skinny hole for them to be pathching up.

Another realization that I am coming to is that I might be checking the bees too often. Cheryl recomended not opening the hive more than once every 10 days. I've been opening the hive every 7 to 14 days, and every time you open the hive, it sets the bees back a few days (because opening the hive and smoking them is very disruptive). I'll probably wait a bit before opening them up again, because it doesn't look like they are building honey comb fast enough for me to harvest anything this year :(