Package hives will be 4 weeks old on Saturday.
Can you do honeycomb on 1 deep of brood, or should you wait until you have 2 deep full, and then put on a honeycomb (Rossman rounds) super? I'm concerned over them swarming if they have only 1 brood chamber, or not having enough room to expand/strengthen before the honey flow.
On Saturday, Echo Hive first brood deep was 1/2 frame empty with drone cells and a queen cell being started. We removed the queen cell, mid centered in hive. We added a 2nd brood super & also a honey comb super on top of that, but I am concerned that with the 2nd brood deep mostly empty, the Rossman rounds will become hive beetle heaven.
On Saturday, Delta hive was close behind. It has no 2nd deep brood, just a honeycomb Rossman round on it. We were not sure whether you should have 2 deep of brood before putting on honeycomb super or just one. Delta brood deep had 3.5 empty frames on Saturday.
There is still an empty deep on top of each of the Rossman supers because they are for 10 frame, and we have 8 frame, and no 10 frame lids. We blocked in the open space top and bottom that overhangs the 8 frame boxes above and below. Should we just use plywood temp as a lid, to remove that extra empty deep space on top? There are bees cleaning in those empty deeps on top. (We took the sugar water out of Echo because they were no longer using any of it. Delta is still using sugar.)
Advice? Have not done this before :) Hive beetles are present, have been killing them, but they do not seem to be interested in the between frame traps. Have killed a few SHB larvae on the bottom board.
Read and study about Ross Rounds. Then, "maybe", next year, put one on, but NOT on this year's package.
2 Good books on comb honey are
1 How to raise beautiful comb honey by Richard Taylor (Rossman Rounds)
2 Honey in the Comb by Eugene E. Killion (Section Boxes)
DO NOT DO (Rossman Rounds) or (Section Boxes) on package bees.
BEE HAPPY Jim 134 :)
Okay. Why?
Why? There are complete books on comb honey. It is many times harder to make than extracted or cut comb. Read just a little and you will understand.
You start with a 5 box hive, packed with bees. Then you remove 3 boxes, so the bees are packed and hanging on the outside. Then you add one comb honey super.
In a nutshell....because your hive needs to be jam packed with bees and normal storage resources for them to even consider filling out those little comb frames in a manner that would look presentable as comb honey, but like Iddee said, it is way more complicated than that and the manipulations required would be detailed in those book. Needless to say, it is an advanced maneuver....learn to walk before you run grasshopper... :-D
I don't have anything to add to what has been said. I just wanted to say I like the way you designate your hives. I was just trying to explain the phonetic alphabet to my wife the other day, but she didn't get it. What branch of the service were you in?
Most people do a cut down split.
Thanks y'all! Advice very much appreciated :)
There is no way we could build that kind of strength on even Echo hive this year. Re-reading through the comb book we have, I am reminded of some other why's too, so glad I asked. Makes me wonder why some of the books recommended starting with comb honey. I suppose they were being tongue in cheek, saying you would learn a lot more about your bees doing that?
We took the Rossman supers off, smoked out the bees that were in them & stored in a cold sealed building. Bees had not started to build in them. We will re-use the wax to start foundationless comb, or I may make a few small pretty wax candles:)
On phonetics: No service history. My Dad is a Ham radio Operator & I was a Canadian Girl Scout. It just makes sense. B, C, D, E, G, P, T, V and Zee, if you are where Z is not Zed, all sound the same, especially if you are trying to discuss or clarify them across the yard with geese, kids (or I suppose artilliary) in the background :). Bravo Charley, Delta and Echo are a lot easier to tell apart.
My husband says to add that we are going to keep going until we reach Double aught Echo.
>Makes me wonder why some of the books recommended starting with comb honey. I suppose they were being tongue in cheek, saying you would learn a lot more about your bees doing that?
What they mean by doing comb honey is just to use surplus or no foundation and do cut comb honey. That's so you don't have to buy an extractor, build a honey house, buy an uncapping tray, buy an uncapping knife, buy an ucapping fork, buy special supers, buy...
Now THAT makes sense :)