Hello all...My first year and starting out is going slow. First my 3 nucs didnt get released till june 1st due to a queen issue and weather. I brought them home, set them up and put the 5 all plastic pierco deep frames into a deep hive body with 5 brand new wood frames, 2 frames on one side and 3 on the other. But the frames I added were wood frames with plastic foundation, painted with wax from the factory.
I have been feeding them but they are not drawing out the new frames and as the brood hatch they are filling the brood chambers with nectur and I will be honey bound sooner than later. I moved a wood frame over into the 5 frame section to see if they will draw it out. I am thinking of just getting some plastic piercos delivered and replace what I have and hope for the best. I was feeding them but they are not taking it any more. I wouldnt be worried but 2 out of the 3 hives are doing this and I am not sure if I should wait or if I should jump in and use the all plastic. Gets me mad because I have a ton of deep frames ready to use and it looks like they will not be used. Help me boys and girls and share your wise experience...I know this has happened to some one out there!
Regards
John
Once again:
1. Mixing frame and/or foundation type can confuse the bees, they may choose to work plastic but not wood but most probably the other way around.
2. Bess will only build comb on frames they occupy, that islooking at the bees as a loose cluster, the amount of frames it takes to hold all the bees is as much comb as they will draw out until there are enough bees to push them onto another frame.
3. Regardless of howmuch you feed #2 is always in play.
4. To assist the bess in developing the hive, in it's early stages lets assume we hare hiving a 3 pound package in a 10 frame deep hive with undrawn combs.
A. Three pounds of bees will losely cover 4-5 deep frames.
B. Once they draw out the foundation on those 4-5 frames they will cease wax production until the hive population rises to the point the forces them to begin occupying an adjacent frame.
C. Continued feeding, along with the natural forage, will reduces the amount of brood cells available to the queen for population expansion.
D. Bees require 3-4 times the number of cells to process nectar as it takes to store the same derived honey. This means a hive can become honey bound very easily in it's early stages.
E. Bees will move off of storage frames quite readily, whether it be pollen, nectar, or capped honey, but the won't move off of brood.
F. Use E to help the bees, move the outer storage frames outward and replace with undrawn frames. The bees will move off the storage frames and beging drawing out the combs on the new frames that are now within the lose cluster area of the bees.
G. This allows the bees to consume some of the stores to manufacture wax, makes more cells available to the queen for laying eggs, and also gives the bees more cells for the processing of honey.
Understanding those basic concepts is necessary in order to successfully grow a hive from package or swarm to a production hive.
Excellent post. Thank you!
Brian
I appreciate you highlighting it "one more time" so someone like me who thinks every wrong move is a life and death decision, feels better about what I already know and what I can do. Nature is amazing and I respect the bees but knowledge through experience is a place I hope to be soon. Just didn't want to screw it up too much.
I did those things that you had in the repost and will look this weekend to see if they are moving along the way I hope. Again thanks for the info; I do appreciate your valuable time.
J