Hello everyone,
I just have a couple questions.
1) I need to move my hive 2 feet because of property line issues. I was wondering if you thought that doing this when I do my first full inspection would cause the bees any stress? I have extra hive stand, was thinking I could set it up and just move that way.
2) I have ten frames of waxed rite-cell foundation that did not get finished last fall. Some of it is drawn out, some uncapped, and some capped honey. I am planning to feed,feed,feed, 1:1 syrup this spring as I have a lot of foundation that needs to bee drawn. My thinking is, if I put the ten frame super left over from fall under the inner cover when I start feeding, that they will finish it. Would that be correct? Oh, I did freeze frames last fall.
I guess there's more than 2 questions. :oops:
3) My goal this spring is to lure the girls up into new equipment. The old stuff given to me, full of bees :-D(just tooting my own horn) is in poor shape. Should I put excluder under queen to help this process, or would that be wrong? Thanks in advance. You guys are great!!
#1--- Moving it two feet should be no problem
#2--- I need help with this -- I feed, feed, feed and they just store it. Often leading to a honey bound queen. I think my problem is I do this early in the season when there are no new bees and the older bees are not as willing to draw comb. I need to try later in the year when the weather is warmer and the new bees are in full force.
#3---Just let her move up on her own, eventually she should --- after the weather warms for you, use excluder then if you like. Let brood hatch in old box and extract honey or feed.
If you are still having cool weather and you isolate queen in new box with excluder, you may cause brood to be chilled or queen left alone in upper box with no cluster.
Is the equipment the same size can you not just change the frames to a new box for starters?
Thanks for the info SC-bee. The reason I want to move bees up this way is because the frames are not real good either. And also the comb is about 6 yrs old. Thanks again!!