Ok, I have four brand new packages this year in eight frame hives. I have been feeding since I installed the packages on April 14th this year. I let the bees draw out 6 of the eight frames and then added another 8 frame hive body on April 29th. I moved three frames of brood from the lower box and put them in the center of the upper box. I then put a new undrawn empty frame in the center of the lower box and put the two empty frames that were left over at each end of the lower box. The bees drew out the empty frame in the center of the lower box very quickly but it seems they been working on drawing out the frames in the top box and ignoring the undrawn frames in the lower box. I should have new bees emerging by this weekend if all goes well and i am wondering about adding a queen excluder and a honey super soon. Would this be the right thing to do? If so, should i stop feeding them when i add the honey super? The frames will be brand new so i was wondering how fast they would draw them out if i were not feeding.
You should not have move the frames. You do not have enough bees to cover all the frames that you want them on. They are working and you opened up their center. You can add the super and let the bees move up on their own. They will draw out the empty frames in time. Just give them time.
So are you saying that i should stop feeding them when i add the super?
You can keep feeding them. But you are in the middle of the honey flow. The poplars were blooming a week or so ago.
Quote from: mat299 on May 09, 2012, 02:32:16 PM
So are you saying that i should stop feeding them when i add the super?
This is a question where you'll get different answers. I don't feed if I have honey supers on. I also don't recommend using excluders until they have drawn out the comb in the supers.
But if i don't use the excluder, what are the chances that the queen will lay eggs in my honey super?
Quote from: mat299 on May 10, 2012, 08:24:26 AM
But if i don't use the excluder, what are the chances that the queen will lay eggs in my honey super?
That's what I was thinking. :-\
If you feed with honey supers on you won't have honey. You will have sugar syrup. Never feed with honey supers on unless you are just getting them to draw comb on it.
Putting on a honey super without drawn comb above an excluder will almost certainly keep the bees from drawing those supers out. Let them build it out and if the queen lays brood in it you put the excluder on it and the brood will hatch and the bees will put honey in the cells that hatched.