I started a split hive using a queen cell in July, and I'm thrilled with its progress.
Yesterday's inspection showed five full frames of brood and honey, and the bees are still drawing some comb on 2 or more additional frames.
Here's the rub: I'm transitioning from deep frames to medium frames, and this split hive is composed of a mix of deep and medium frames. When I made the split, I stacked two medium hive boxes to accommodate the mix of frames in hopes that they'd draw out some mediums with comb (and they have)...but this leaves the bees with a few empty frames and some empty space in the bottom of the hive.
I could reduce the empty space in the hive by transferring all the frames to a hive composed of two stacked nucs (a deep nuc with brood and honey on the bottom, and a medium nuc with newly drawn comb on the top).
Is this advised? I hesitate to move them only because they've worked so wonderfully in their current set up.
Liz
If you want to consolidate space for winter, you could put mediums in a deep and fill the void below them with 2" thick styrofoam.
That sounds like a good idea to me. (and easy to do)
But it's not the space at the bottom of the hive that I'm most worried about...it's 3 or 4 empty medium frames in the bottom box. I've got a mix of deep and medium frames in a stack of 2 medium boxes and not all the medium frames are drawn out. I have empty space if I leave them in and empty space if I pull them out.
I wonder if I could cut pieces of Styrofoam and rubber band those pieces into the empty frames. Does anyone see any reason not to do that?
Liz
No expert here, but in the same situation I noticed the undrawn frames were popular with the beetles. I would pull the empty frames before settling in for the winter. Until then feed in hopes of filling at least some of those frames
With the beetles, just remember that they go into the winter cluster with the bees to stay warm. That is were you find them in the coldest winter.