I have a hive from a summer trap out that is in a single 8 frame medium which they have completely drawn and filled in the last week. Plenty of bees, honey, pollen, brood, nice fat young queen - but no more room.
If I add another box it is (I think) unlikely that they will draw it out and fill it before the beginning of November when the weather usually turns cold. On the other hand they might do a lot - good amounts of stores seem to be finally coming in. I do not have comb to give them BTW.
If they partially fill another box I could replace undrawn frames with dummies - is that a good thing to do? Maybe I should use the dummy frames to begin with, but I'm a bit concerned that will give SHB places to hide. I have a few, but no problem at this point.
This little hive seems to me to be doing really well at this point and I don't want to combine it with my other 1 hive.
Quote from: David LaFerney on September 08, 2009, 09:41:48 AM
I have a hive from a summer trap out that is in a single 8 frame medium which they have completely drawn and filled in the last week. Plenty of bees, honey, pollen, brood, nice fat young queen - but no more room.
If I add another box it is (I think) unlikely that they will draw it out and fill it before the beginning of November when the weather usually turns cold. On the other hand they might do a lot - good amounts of stores seem to be finally coming in. I do not have comb to give them BTW.
If they partially fill another box I could replace undrawn frames with dummies - is that a good thing to do? Maybe I should use the dummy frames to begin with, but I'm a bit concerned that will give SHB places to hide. I have a few, but no problem at this point.
This little hive seems to me to be doing really well at this point and I don't want to combine it with my other 1 hive.
Add a med.box and feed them till it's full. Make the entrance as small as possable,just to where you don't get traffic jams. I would add the box on top but before you do,move half your frames up,the two outer honey frames and two outside frames of brood,replace all your empty spaces with empty frames in both boxes. Put the two brood in the middle and a new frame on each side,then the honey one on each side.