I am attempting to "fix" an abandoned hive that consists of just one medium super, bottom board and top board. I am helping some friends do this and they have already purchased deep supers for their brood boxes and want to move this hive into one of their new deeps. The foundation on the abandoned hive is plasticell. And the foundation in the deep supers is plasticell. (I havent worked with plastic foundations much).
So, what is the best way to get these bees to go into the new deep?
From my readings here I discovered a couple ideas:
#1 set the empty deep super on top of the inhabited medium. Insert a frame of open brood from the medium super into to deep to coax the queen up there. Later, after they have hopefully all moved up(days later?), put the medium on top of the deep with a Q excluder in between.
#2 Shake and brush all the bees in the medium into the deep. Hope that I get the queen in there. Top it with a Q excluder and then set the medium on top of it.
Any other ideas? Has anyone done this before and have some tips for me??
thanks for any help
Bees naturally like to build downward. I would place the deep on the bottom. Later on they could add another medium on top of the first medium.
I run a single deep on the bottom as my set up and all mediums above that.
This is what I would do.
...JP
Most peopel are trying to get them from deeps into mediums...
Shouldn't be hard to do just put them on top of the deep. But like michael says Michael why use deeps?
Thanks for all the ideas. I know it is weird moving to deeps from mediums. What happened is these folks bought a bunch of bee equipment to "get started" with bees, with no guidance other than the sales rep on the end of the line. So, they spent a lot of money on the deeps and want to work with what they have.
I will put that super on top of the deep and let the bees sort that out! Easy! :-D
Quote from: JP on July 18, 2010, 06:16:38 AM
This is what I would do.Bees naturally like to build downward. I would place the deep on the bottom.
...JP
ditto
BEE HAPPY Jim 134 :)