I have one 10-frame hive that I eventually want to get into an 8-frame. I'm reluctant to buy more boxes, but I feared the bees were running out of room and could swarm, so I asked a friend to lend me a box. The hive presently has two deeps with a queen excluder between. That's just the way I bought it, bees and all, from another friend. All my (friend lending me a box) had was a honey super with empty frames. The top deep on my hive is full of nectar, none of which is capped. Should I move the QE to the top of that box and put the honey super on top of the QE? Will the bees move nectar up to the super to make room for brood in what is now a huge honey super? Would they be more likely to move the nectar up if I remove the QE entirely? I'm still pretty new at this and learning, so what will please the bees the best? My thinking is that if they move the nectar up, maybe I can harvest the honey super later and leave whatever is below for the bees to overwinter. What should I do?
Gary
the queen would not normally cross a full box of nectar to get to an empty.
the need to check the brood box to make room available is required to prevent swarms.
jay
take the excluder out. replace a bunch of the honey frames with empty frames. save the honey frames for feeding back later, or, if you did not feed, take the honey for you.
if you put that box on top, all they'll do is fill it with honey. you can put it in between for brood, but they'll still need room for storing more honey.
i am not sure how you plan on going to 8 frames in the brood nest. that's not really a good idea. if you want to get to smaller boxes, that's another thing.
Kathy, my question is whether they'll move nectar from the deep into the super to make room in the deep for the queen to lay eggs. Alernatively, I can move some of the frames of honey into an 8-frame box and add to my 8-frame hive, putting empty frames into the 10-frame and remove the queen excluder or move it above the second box and add the honey super. Should I remove the QE, or move it up? Did I make sense with that?
Bees will move honey up. Last year I attempted to get my queen to lay in a medium ( I was planning on switching to all medium equipment), so I placed a medium with frames of capped honey under the brood box. Two weeks later I had a medium full of dry comb. The new medium I placed on top was quickly drawn out and filled.
The queen never did move down. Later on I moved it back for them to refill with honey.
I find that my bees tend to move honey down rather than move it up. I had 1 hive that was doing really well filling the super nicely then they swarmed and moved all the honey/nectar from the super down into the brood box so I now have a dry honey super and a 3-4 frames of honey in the brood box. The queen is laying well and there is a good flow on so hopefully they will start filling the super again soon...