This may be a pretty generalized question & the answer may be a factor of a multitude of of variances but can anyone tell me their own experience of how long it roughly took for a 4 frame Nuc to completely draw out a full 10 frame brood box. My last inspection a week ago had around 7 frames drawn out, 4 good frames of brood, both sides with the last three partially drawn on one side & nothing on the other. I spun those frames around to give them plain foundation to draw out. A week later on my next inspection has seen that drawn out comb on those frames now completely gone & now just foundation. They seem to have unbuilt it for some reason. We did have a full week of rainy weather. On a plus note, the brood frames have extended out to the third frame in from one side ( 6 frames of brood ) & many more bees covering the tops of the frames when opening the lid. The bees are covering a solid 6, 7 or so frame at present. I'm just curious to know if my girls are on track or not. I got my Nuc on the 12th September.
It all depends on the food supply, and the bees. Another hive right next to it could possibly completely fill out all 10 frames.
I recommend you move the frames to next to the brood frames. Then do it again when they are full. If the weather is warm, you can put one between the brood frames.
Jim
Thanks Jim.
If I recall, there is drawn out comb next to the brood frames on either side of the box so the Queen has plenty of areas to lay. They seem to be concentrating on only building just what's required for expansion which I would assume is quite normal. If the food supply is more abundant, I guess they would be building more cells on the frames toward the outside of the box to store nectar etc. They seem to be bringing in a let of pollen but from memory, there wasn't a huge amount of stored nectar & no capped nectar. It's in there as I can smell it every time I walk past the hive. Can you recall how long any of your hives took before you added your first super? 2 months, 3 months, etc?
Cheers
51 views & only 1 reply?
Come on guys.
Can someone give me an idea of the time it took with any of your hives to get your first super on?
First, If you want the bees to draw out comb, you have to feed them syrup continuously. If there is a flow available from forage they will slow down or even ignore the feed. Soon as the natural flow slows or is not of their taste for the day they will be back on the syrup. If there is no appreciable flow nor syrup, they will not make wax, they will not draw comb.
Second, to draw comb they have to have alot of bees of the right age. Not all bees can make wax all the time. There is a certain age that they are wax makers and that is only for a few days then they move on to other chores and the next wave of young bees become wax makers. You need to have bees and a steady rank of ages of bees passing through the wax maker age stage. If there is a gap in the ranks as the bees age that gap appears in the wax makers. At that time drawing of comb will stop, and combs may even contract a bit as the bees chew off balls of wax and take them to use elsewhere for example for capping brood cells.
Going to your question as to when to add a second box. Answer is add the second box as soon as they have enough bees to patrol it AND that the day and night time temperatures are warm enough that they will not lose brood from tightening the cluster every night. Overnight temperatures always above 15 deg C.
For your question as to how fast they will draw out comb and fill a box. Just as an example: When I need a bunch of new frames, I select a strong hive of 1 or 2 deep brood boxes (langstroth 10 frame) that is established and has the brood boxes already established and utilized. In warm weather and a good natural flow on ... Plop on and entire box of new bar 10 frames of foundation and put a hive top feeder half full of syrup on top of that. Under ideal conditions they will draw out every frame and half fill each of them in entire box in one week.
Sounds like you need to:
1) put continuous feed on your nuc/hive
2) make sure the queen and brood are healthy and expanding, giving a stream of ages of bees passing through wax maker stage
3) check your weather pattern, ambient temperatures, to know if conditions are favourable for the nest to be expanding without suffering a set back. Keep them tight if it is cool. If it is warm, add space and do so regularly to make them feel like their house is always just a bit too big.
PS: do not go spending unnecessary time shifting frames around. Bees spend a spectacular amount of time undoing and redoing work to correct what the beekeeper did to them. The beekeepers do not realize how badly they set back new colonies and nucs. Soon as you put the lid back on the bees get busy to undo what you did and get things back to where they want it. Nothing else goes on and after that will they move forward again. They will not draw comb on the frames you want nor the way you want. They will draw comb and arrange the way THEY want it. So just leave them alone if you want them to expand. Your only role is to control pests and diseases, give them space to live, give them support resources when they need it, and all otherwise let the bees be the bees. So, just keep the feeder full and let them have at it. Remove the odd piece of wild comb of course but otherwise just stay out. When they are full up into the second box and moving into the third, only then may you start thinking about frame manipulations. At that point you will have less impact on their overall master plan. They will also have a lot more bees available to undo the mess you ve made.
Does that help?
"Can someone give me an idea of the time it took with any of your hives to get your first super on?"
Honey Pump has given some back ground information but you are in NSW - not Canada.
The simple answer is - it depends. I had supers readdy in less then a month but this is not too common. It could take from 1 month to...a year.
A few hints:
- don't feed where you are - it is Spring and everything is flowering.
- don't move a super on too early - I assume you have to deal with SHB. Make sure the bees can control the pace you give them.
- be patient!
Thanks HoneyPump & max.
Exactly the info I was after. There's a good pollen source here at the moment & they're bringing in plenty.
I'll skip feeding them & just let them expand as they see fit. There's a lot of activity around the hive & on my last inspection, the brood is healthy & there's heaps of different sized larvae in the cells. I did squash a couple of beetles but didn't see any more.
So much to learn & I guess patience is one of them.
Cheers guys
As your hive expands, keep some simple math in mind when you are looking at space requirements. Be patient, but stay ahead of them.
A full frame of brood makes for 3 frames of walking working bees when they emerge. The frame they are emerging from plus 2 frames = 3. Make sure you stay ahead of that curve by at least 1 week to avoid crowding and subsequent swarming. Give them that extra space at 1 to 2 weeks before they need it.
When you look in on them note how many frames of bees there are and how much brood is in progress. The math is that in 1 weeks time following your inspection the bees are going to need; the number of frames of bees seen + 2 frames more for each frame of brood seen. Add that space sooner rather than later.
Example. Let's say the colony is in a single 10 frame box. You do a brief inspection, making sure to put each frame back in the exact same position and orientation that it came from. When all done, you saw 6 frames covered in bees. Of those frames, 3 frames are almost fully brood. Therefore, in 1 to 2 weeks time your bees are going to need 6+(2x3) = 12 frames of total space to expand onto. The box is 10 frames, the bees are going to need 12 soon. The math says that at the end of the following week you will go add another box so they have that extra 2 frames of space available or the bees will be feeling crowded and may begin swarming tendencies.
Later on you inspect again. The hive is now in 2 boxes, 10 frames each. You do an inspection, again making sure to put each frame back in the exact same position and orientation that it came from. When all done, you saw 9 frames covered in bees. Of those frames, 4 frames are almost fully brood. Therefore, in 1 to 2 weeks time your bees are going to need 9+(2x4) = 17 frames of total space to expand onto. There are 2 boxes of 10 frames each, 20 frames of space, the bees are going to need 17. The math says that they are fine and should be happy in the space that they have. Do not add another box ... yet.
Thanks HoneyPump, some great info there.
From memory, when I opened the hive, there were 6 frames covered in bees & the two outer frames on each side ( 10 frame brood box )
some bees were on them but no drawn out comb, just wax foundation. I'll do another inspection next weekend & note the numbers.
Hi Brian,
I didn`t understand where You are at, so I can only describe what I do - in spring, and on from there.
THP had a lot of knowledge. I guess northwest Canada is different from most places.
In my experience (and not mine alone) swarming is not only decided by not enough room. So I keep the bees pretty tightly. BUT - I have a very high bottom, so they hang in there. My brood-space is small. Less than 1 ten-frame-box mostly.
I put on a super over excluder only when
1. there are enough bees to occupy it at once.
2. the flow makes it necessary.
after that I add supers as needed. When the 2nd combs from the edges are beginning to shine white from being drawn out. And of course anticipationg the flow. This might take a few years to be able to judge on depedning on your area.
there would be more- but my little one just needs attention.
Thanks blackforest.
The bees are solidly over 6 frames so it appears I still have some time before adding my super.
I'm using a full depth 10 frame box for the brood. All supers are 10 frame full depth also.
As a new beekeeper, I guess I'm worrying about things I don't yet understand, that's why I'm here.
I've had the hive going on 6 weeks & haven't even located my Queen ( haven't tried hard to find her ) but there is a large number of larvae at different stages so I know she's there. The main concerns for me other than accidentally killing my Queen is worrying about whether or not the bees are finding enough resources for the growing number of bees. The brood frames are well laid, top to bottom & edge to edge so she's doing a great job. I often watch the bees coming back to the hive & see 3 different coloured pollen being bought in so the foragers are doing a fantastic job as well. I didn't notice a lot of stored nectar which roused my concern to their nectar resources available.
I'm beginning to understand the life cycle of the hive & really enjoying it so far. Observe more, worry less from now on.
Quote from: BrianP_69 on October 21, 2018, 05:34:08 AM
I've had the hive going on 6 weeks & haven't even located my Queen ( haven't tried hard to find her ) but there is a large number of larvae at different stages so I know she's there. The main concerns for me other than accidentally killing my Queen is worrying about whether or not the bees are finding enough resources for the growing number of bees.
I feel comfortable if there is a honey cell for each brood cell per week until the flow. Once the flow starts resources is not an issue until it stops.
Quote from: BrianP_69 on October 21, 2018, 05:34:08 AM
Thanks blackforest.
The bees are solidly over 6 frames so it appears I still have some time before adding my super.
I'm using a full depth 10 frame box for the brood. All supers are 10 frame full depth also.
As a new beekeeper, I guess I'm worrying about things I don't yet understand, that's why I'm here.
I've had the hive going on 6 weeks & haven't even located my Queen ( haven't tried hard to find her ) but there is a large number of larvae at different stages so I know she's there. The main concerns for me other than accidentally killing my Queen is worrying about whether or not the bees are finding enough resources for the growing number of bees. The brood frames are well laid, top to bottom & edge to edge so she's doing a great job. I often watch the bees coming back to the hive & see 3 different coloured pollen being bought in so the foragers are doing a fantastic job as well. I didn't notice a lot of stored nectar which roused my concern to their nectar resources available.
I'm beginning to understand the life cycle of the hive & really enjoying it so far. Observe more, worry less from now on.
Sounds like You got some time still,
BUT as THP described nicely, Your hive is gonna grow really rapidly. So watch it closley and do add another box when the bees are sort of broiling when you lift the lid. might be in a few days. If a good flow sets in before that, give it earlier.
You will notice the flow when bees are really flying like crazy.
DO NOT let them get hungry. as long as there is no supers on, give em some syrup if none is coming in. not to much, just to keep them happy. And: alive. syrup in the supers just is not the real thing.
whats your climate, where you at`?
Thanks blackforest.
I spoke to three commercial beekeepers locally who never supplement the bees food source.
I do wonder if giving them an abundance of nectar they may build comb on the remaining frames in the brood box & fill it with syrup taking away the cells required for the Queen in the absence of a honey super. We are in Spring here at the moment & average temperatures are 13-22 deg Celsius with an average of 5 days rainfall.
Quote from: BrianP_69 on October 21, 2018, 05:34:08 AM
Thanks blackforest.
The bees are solidly over 6 frames so it appears I still have some time before adding my super.
I'm using a full depth 10 frame box for the brood. All supers are 10 frame full depth also.
As a new beekeeper, I guess I'm worrying about things I don't yet understand, that's why I'm here.
I've had the hive going on 6 weeks & haven't even located my Queen ( haven't tried hard to find her ) but there is a large number of larvae at different stages so I know she's there. The main concerns for me other than accidentally killing my Queen is worrying about whether or not the bees are finding enough resources for the growing number of bees. The brood frames are well laid, top to bottom & edge to edge so she's doing a great job. I often watch the bees coming back to the hive & see 3 different coloured pollen being bought in so the foragers are doing a fantastic job as well. I didn't notice a lot of stored nectar which roused my concern to their nectar resources available.
I'm beginning to understand the life cycle of the hive & really enjoying it so far. Observe more, worry less from now on.
Based on this, you need to add a box now. And feed. There will soon be a lot of bees in there and a lot of hungry mouths to that need to eat. New bees do no forage. They tend the hive, nurse larvae, and make wax. If you are serious about drawing comb and building out a hive, you have to feed. At minimum until the first waves of young bees turn to older forager bees. Just because there are flowers does not mean the bees have resources. The box may be boiling over with bees, yet They may not have enough of a foraging force able to supply the demands of the expanding colony within the hive. By feeding you are putting what they need right where they need it without having to wait for it
There is a difference between getting a new hive built out and established vs managing an already built out hive. The new hive needs 8x more resources than the established one.
Again, something I didn't know. Thanks so much for the advice. Do you think with feeding it may be problematic that the bees may use drawn comb to store sugar syrup & take away space needed for the Queen to lay?
Is it a concern that if feeding, you are creating a problem for the population finding their own nectar resources if none are available? I don't intend to artificially feed all the time, they need to do it themselves. Remembering too I am only using a single 10 frame brood box.
Cheers
THP and also me only use one brood-box (me even less usually), too. The bees will put breeding first, so they won`t clog up the comb with syrup. ONLY if you feed too much. That takes quite a bit to fill out the box. Or if you don`t add a super when flow comes in. There are only a few flows that clog up the brood-nest. giving more space doesn`t alter that. I often have practically NO honey to speak of in the brood-nest. It`s above the excluder.
The bees will always prefer a natural nectar-(or dew-honey) source over feed. They will just neglect the feed or only go at it at night or in weather they cannot forage or gather.
a (constant) flow of some sort (artificial or natural) is necessary to build comb, either natural comb or just drawing foundation. Bees will only build what they need.
If you are in doubt about the stores of your hive, guess at it. I would say: 2,5 kg per full and capped Langstroth-deep-frame (that about right? may be a little more even).
If you feed the bees with supers on and honey in them when the flow stops, feeding of course may result in feed in your supers. that is a delicate maneuver I never do. or I would feed honey in case the bees need it.
Brian - where in NSW are you?
I'm North of Brisbane and everything is flowering. We are taking honey off for the 5 th time in some cases. My best hive has probably produced close to 150 kg of honey so far.
Feeding in our Spring - never if the weather is sunny, indeed I have never feed bees sugar syrup in 40 plus yesr of Beekeeping here. Beekeeping is local.
Quote from: max2 on October 22, 2018, 05:15:11 AM
Brian - where in NSW are you?
I'm North of Brisbane and everything is flowering. We are taking honey off for the 5 th time in some cases. My best hive has probably produced close to 150 kg of honey so far.
Feeding in our Spring - never if the weather is sunny, indeed I have never feed bees sugar syrup in 40 plus yesr of Beekeeping here. Beekeeping is local.
that sounds like the right answer.
Quote from: max2 on October 22, 2018, 05:15:11 AM
Brian - where in NSW are you?
I'm North of Brisbane and everything is flowering. We are taking honey off for the 5 th time in some cases. My best hive has probably produced close to 150 kg of honey so far.
Feeding in our Spring - never if the weather is sunny, indeed I have never feed bees sugar syrup in 40 plus yesr of Beekeeping here. Beekeeping is local.
Thanks Max.
I sent you a PM but not sure if you got it.
Brian
Follow Maxs' advice. It is totally unnecessary to feed here in Australia. We are not in the USA where conditions are different and advice given here is mainly from US beeks who are knowledgeable about their conditions but unaware of our climate. Depends where you are ...drought or not, but you should be coming in to some flows with spring flowering. Chat to local beeks or join a club and get information about your locale and what flows happen when. Let the bees do their thing and be patient.
Good luck.
Bamboo, you can't lump all of the US into one category. I have never found a need to feed in my area but there are a lot of people in my area that do.
Got ot - sent one back.
If there is forage, there is no need to feed if you are happy with their pace and performance. However, if your objective is population build up, drawing of a lot of comb, and rapid expansion of the hive. Feed is essential and will make the difference between a populous hive hive filling honey supers in 6 weeks versus not feeding and a hive that is still working on drawing out comb in two months. If you want them to build fast, feed so they are never slowed due to lack of resources and gets them over the hump until there is a strong foraging force. If you are happy with their pace, do not feed.
Beekeeping is regional in a sense of what season you are in, the forage available, climate and weather. Beekeeping is universal in a sense of what is going on inside the hive and what the bees need at each stage of their annual cycle to achieve their maximum potential.
I think there is more than enough valuable information throughout above posts to disseminate what information you need to take away to accomplish what your goals are with respect to getting a new hive established and drawing out comb.
On your questions;
- no, brood rearing takes priority. They will not crowd out the queen from the feed - provided you are attentive and are adding space appropriately
- no, you will not have syrup feed in your honey supers because logic and reason says that if honey supers are going on then they do not need feed anymore and the feed has been removed prior to adding the supers.
Have fun with it!
Quote from: Acebird on October 22, 2018, 06:00:42 PM
Bamboo, you can't lump all of the US into one category. I have never found a need to feed in my area but there are a lot of people in my area that do.
I wasn't lumping all together, I am fully aware that keeping bees in Florida is very different than in Minnesota. Much the same in Australia we have vast differences in temps and climate. I keep bees in a subtropical climate where winter to us is 16C with summer temps approaching 40+C. Further south they will have snow at times but not the snowed in situations that some of you experience in the Northern states so conditions vary greatly.
I used to keep bees in NZ and the only time I fed was hives that were used to pollinate Kiwifruit as there was no nectar flow.
Thanks everyone for all the valuable info posted.
I guess if I wanted to build up the hive faster I could feed but after speaking to several local beekeepers in my region, it seems it's unnecessary, especially at this time of the year. I have to be a bit more patient & just let them do what they will. They are going great, numbers are increasing & I can smell nectar in there every time I walk past the hive, it smells awesome. Next inspection, I'll take note of how many frames are covered in bees, I recall 6 last time & check how far out the brood is & how many frames they have stores on. I'm probably looking straight at stuff & not even realizing what I'm looking at. I noted the brood frames were excellent, capped brood top to bottom & end to end with hardly a missed cell so the Queen is doing a great job. I noted heaps of healthy larvae as well in different stages so that was very exciting too.
Thanks everyone.
Yeah, that is so.
There are regions where the flow stops, though , in mid-season. If honey has been pulled of, there just might be a need to feed (depending on how one managed the hives and weather-extremes). I have had this situation twice - due to unruly cold miserable weather in June/July. In one case I put on half-filled-supers again. The other case I just got by. So.... if your flows are steady, don`t worry. If you got flows that can fail in between, think about some storage of honey for the bees.
My colleagues running two brood boxes never have to worry, while I have to. Especially when moving the bees (without honey in the supers then) to the forest. But they got to transport the stuff, too and handle it. And get less honey.
I have completed another hive inspection today & all is looking great. The bees are pretty much covering all 10 frames when I opened the lid & all 10 frames are being worked on with building comb. There is still 1 frame that doesn't have any drawn comb on but the bees are working on it. I have noticed the last couple of nights there is quite a few bees bearding on the outside at the entrance. I know they do this to help regulate the hive temperature but they also do it if the hive is starting to feel congested. I think I'll be adding my first super this weekend.
Sorry rookie question- I thought you always fed sugar syrup- what do you feed if you don?t feed sugar syrup?
"Sorry rookie question- I thought you always fed sugar syrup- what do you feed if you don?t feed sugar syrup? "
The idea is to leave enough honey so that you never have to feed. It works in our climate but I'm sure it is a very different situation in Canada or the Balck Forest.
Quote from: max2 on October 29, 2018, 07:47:34 AM
"Sorry rookie question- I thought you always fed sugar syrup- what do you feed if you don?t feed sugar syrup? "
The idea is to leave enough honey so that you never have to feed. It works in our climate but I'm sure it is a very different situation in Canada or the Balck Forest.
Overall in Germany, it`s sort of impossible without feeding. Just had an email from a beekeeper in Berlin, fed 1 ton of sugar to 30 hives since beginning of July.
Wow. And my wife complained because I used 20 pounds of sugar for 13 hives to boost them up a bit for winter. All newly acquired hives.
Jim
I like to have 20 kg of sugar at hand for every hive I expect to send into winter. Dont always need it all. But it would be horrible to have too little as I need certified Bioland-sugar, which is sort of hard to get. So I order it in late winter and have to have a rule of thumb about how many hives there will be in August.
This year i got a ton left-over, which is just fine with me. But....it was replacement by pine-honey. Extremely valuable and NOT good for the bees.
My wife came home from the store today with 70 pounds of sugar. She got it for 20 cents per pound. Usually it has been 40 cents or more here.
Jim
20 kg is over 44 lbs. For each hive. All I can say is wow. :shocked:
My hives wouldn't need much honey if I fed them that much. I shoot for anything over 75 lbs of honey to overwinter without any feeding required. Some have done fine with about 50 lbs of honey. Even my lightest hives won't get much more than ten pounds of sugar.
Quote from: cao on October 29, 2018, 10:12:42 PM
20 kg is over 44 lbs. For each hive. All I can say is wow. :shocked:
My hives wouldn't need much honey if I fed them that much. I shoot for anything over 75 lbs of honey to overwinter without any feeding required. Some have done fine with about 50 lbs of honey. Even my lightest hives won't get much more than ten pounds of sugar.
we don`t need that many stores. anything from 15 to 20 kg - depending on micro-climate - over-all-stores are all that is needed (let`s say from mid-October on). it`s the thing, there are no fall flows. the last flow in Germany is usually over by mid-July at the latest. Very very few regions might get anything later, nothing of it is suitable as winter-feed. So usually they either feed on their own honey in late summer already, are already being fed.
Don`t know about normal sugar-prices here. We pay about 1,50 or so Euro per kg on a pallet of 800 kg. But that is certified, regional, organic, Bioland sugar.
First snow-flakes just tumbling by my window here.
Two weeks ago I added my first super. I waited a week before inspection hoping they would have at least started drawing comb. I was a little disappointed to see all 10 frames untouched so I can only assume there was still some usable space in the brood box so they had no need to venture upstairs. The second week inspection was much different. 7 of the 10 frames are drawn out with nectar stores on both sides of those frames so the girls are onto a decent honey flow. I will be doing another inspection this weekend to see how they're progressing & to check if any of the frames are being capped.
Hi Brian,
you will find that moving a couple of old frames with mostly capped brood from the brood box into the new super will make them move quicker.
They will never abandon their babys.
The aother advantage is that the queen will have new foundation to lay in.
When all the brood has hatched in the frames you moved into the honey super the bees will fill it with honey.
If the frames have old foundation this is an opportunity to extract and renew the foundation.
Quote from: max2 on November 14, 2018, 08:07:50 PM
Hi Brian,
you will find that moving a couple of old frames with mostly capped brood from the brood box into the new super will make them move quicker.
They will never abandon their babys.
The aother advantage is that the queen will have new foundation to lay in.
When all the brood has hatched in the frames you moved into the honey super the bees will fill it with honey.
If the frames have old foundation this is an opportunity to extract and renew the foundation.
Great tips, thank you.
A couple of questions come to mind.
1. Move the chosen brood frame to the super with the bees or shake them off. I'm not the most experienced at finding the Queen among the crowded frame.
2. Place a brand new frame with foundation where I took the frame from? This might see an empty frame between brood frames or close the brood frames in & give them the new frame on the outside?
Leave the bees on the frame that you move up. If you use queen excluders, not use a queen excluder until you get the bees building in the super
If your nights are above 65, put the empty/foundation less frame in a he middle of the brood. If the hive is overflowing with bees, you could do it with lower temperatures.
Jim
I would shake the bees off before doing that. That way there is no queen and no drones above the excluder. the bees will be back on the brood in no time.
the bees should be able to occupy the space, though.
If you remove the excluder, the bees are more likely to move up.
Jim
>First, If you want the bees to draw out comb, you have to feed them syrup continuously. If there is a flow available from forage they will slow down or even ignore the feed. Soon as the natural flow slows or is not of their taste for the day they will be back on the syrup. If there is no appreciable flow nor syrup, they will not make wax, they will not draw comb.
I find feeding continuously a very bad idea especially with a small colony with limited comb to store it. The queen quickly has no where to lay and they either don't build up at all or they swarm before they build up at all. I've never really seen them stop taking syrup, though enough people have said they have to make me think that SOMETIMES they do. Bees are hoarders and they will stock away syrup filling every available cell. I think the problem really comes down to the lack of feedback mechanisms to control the foraging of nectar. Under normal circumstances the forager who comes back with nectar and no one unloads them, they wander around for a while in the hive and eventually get recruited to forage for something else. When they are getting syrup from a feeder inside the hive there is no receiver bee to refuse to unload them so they just keep moving the syrup. I think the bees actually see a feeder inside as a "spill" that needs to be cleaned up rather than foraging. It's true they can't and won't make wax without some surplus of nectar coming in, but feeding interferes with the feedback that keeps the brood cells open for the queen to lay. If you want bees to build on the other side of the excluder you will need to get them going through it. Either leave it off until they are started drawing comb above the excluder or put some brood above the excluder. I would just quit using the excluder...
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesulbn.htm#excluders
"Queen Excluders... are very useful in queen rearing, and in uniting colonies; but for the purpose they are generally used, viz., for confining the queen to the lower hive through the honey season, I have no hesitation in condemning them. As I have gone into this question fully on a previous occasion, I will quote my remarks:--
"The most important point to observe during the honey season in working to secure a maximum crop of honey is to keep down swarming, and the main factors to this end, as I have previously stated, are ample ventilation of the hives, and adequate working-room for the bees. When either or both these conditions are absent, swarming is bound to take place. The free ventilation of a hive containing a strong colony is not so easily secured in the height of the honey season, even under the best conditions, that we can afford to take liberties with it; and when the ventilating--space between the lower and upper boxes is more than half cut off by a queen-excluder, the interior becomes almost unbearable on hot days. The results under such circumstances are that a very large force of bees that should be out working are employed fanning-, both inside and out, and often a considerable part of the colony will be hanging outside the hive in enforced idleness until it is ready to swarm.
"Another evil caused by queen-excluders, and tending to the same end--swarming--is that during a brisk honey-flow the bees will not readily travel through them to deposit their loads of surplus honey in the supers, but do store large quantities in the breeding-combs, and thus block the breeding-space. This is bad enough at any time, but the evil is accentuated when it occurs in the latter part of the season. A good queen gets the credit of laying from two to three thousand eggs per day: supposing she is blocked for a few days, and loses the opportunity of laying, say, from fifteen hundred to two thousand eggs each day, the colony would quickly dwindle down, especially as the average life of the bee in the honey season is only about six weeks.
"For my part I care not where the queen lays--the more bees the more honey. If she lays in some of the super combs it can be readily rectified now and again by putting the brood below, and side combs of honey from the lower box above; some of the emerging brood also may be placed at the side of the upper box to give plenty of room below. I have seen excluders on in the latter part of the season, the queens idle for want of room, and very little brood in the hives, just at a time when it is of very great importance that there should be plenty of young bees emerging."--Isaac Hopkins, The Australasian Bee Manual
Quote from: sawdstmakr on November 15, 2018, 11:24:08 AM
If you remove the excluder, the bees are more likely to move up.
Jim
if there is a flow and enough bees, they will move up. At least one drawn comb in the super helps and is enough. later in the season foundation might suffice, as there are enough bees and they already know where to store honey. not entering a super for a hive either means it is too weak (or too many boxes for brood) or no flow on.
A couple of questions come to mind.
1. Move the chosen brood frame to the super with the bees or shake them off. I'm not the most experienced at finding the Queen among the crowded frame.
!!!!!!You can shake them off
2. Place a brand new frame with foundation where I took the frame from?
!!!Yes.
This might see an empty frame between brood frames or close the brood frames in & give them the new frame on the outside?
!!No, place it right in the middle. If you have a flow at Yamba like we have here, the bees will have drawn the foundation in a couple of days
There exists sufficient misinformation in this topic discussed here to prompt a post from this corner
of the room , a step long now loathed as contrary views posted only seen to attract derison along
with implied threat of banishment - both toothless beasts.
The following is submitted for thought only by the OP(Brian), I will not be entering into discussion
further.
The whole question of feeding _should be_ answerable in simply noting any presence of wild(feral)
colonies in the local pollination map. Where no ferals are present bees have decided that area is not
suitable in sustaining their reproduction, the very factor bees exist for... from the bees point of view.
However Man through a combination (more often) of avarice and failed insight into bee biology insists
on placing multiple boxes of bees within targeted flora bursts of short duration ("six weeks") with no
intention to move those colonies on, and so supplement feeding applies largely for the remaining
46 weeks in most years. All designed to return a "honey 'crop'" from within a nonviable location.
Notwithstanding the quoted words of Issac Hopkins of a time past - when there was yet much to learn
around Apis husbandry in this Country - the use of queen excluders above a broodnest has develope
into an art form. One embraced by both polllinators and honey producers in this Country today, yet still
remains a mystery to many a method b'kpr - as is well iluminated within comments here(thread).
Further, the art of those manipulations - as Issac touches on - is lost to those unable or unwilling to
control the broodnest development for either the bees or Man's benefit (or Both) in reaching expected
outcomes of keeping bees in a box.
Without QX use the broodnest runs riot throughout the stack in seasonal variation - as most do know -
whereas with selective QX use the bees are controlled in what goes where: see attached graphic.
Much of the argument around QX use - or nonuse - is based on the erroneous philosophy(?) of the
queen decreeing her laying patterns, whereas recent study has reinforced long known brood patterns
in that all she controls is the distribution of genes, and that too appears to be controlled to some
extent by the community.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6040692/
Citing ventilation and/or stores transfer as reasons not to use a QX is not upheld in examining closely
any QX set for some time as bees do propolise QX penetrations in setting airpaths for ventilation, and
in forming beespace as highways for transfer by courier bees - the latter poorly comprehended by
method b'kps and ignored wholly by those promoting dual entrances in a stack (top entrance on super).
Many view QX propolisation as a nuisance, something which again highlights a total absence of
understanding how a stack works, for bees.
Whilst Man's logic leads a belief bees will not "crowd out a queen from the feed" the evidence of bees
backfilling with or without a QX brings out the error of holding to that belief, an error which leads a
FAQ in "how do I get bees to fill the super". The answer to which - when correct - sees bees move
broodnest stores up, inclusive of any stored syrup. The strength of denial in that syrup contaminating
honey extracted is seen in b'kps refusing to add dye to syrup.
The fact syrup in honey is undetectable is relied on, by many, internationally - and is just one reason
why Australian honey is so highly valued, globally.... a status currently the fight of one bloke in
upholding.
https://www.gofundme.com/48jlk4w
As my response to Brian's question I state without compunction the b'kpr never interferes with an
expanding broodnest. Frames can be manipulated at the extents to max out the broodchamber, but
interference within the nest itself - particularly reversing frame orientation - is just going to bring
flow in expansion undone, as Brian discovered.
Foraging in and if itself has zero impact on the outcome Brian created.
When 100% of frames hold a minimum of 60% coverage by bees _and_ the bees are washboarding
the walls a super can be added above a QX, the outer stores frames (#9+#1) moved up and new
frames added to #2+#8 in the broodchamber.
Your time in reading is apppreciated but bees will thank you for any diligence adopted from it.
Cheers.
Bill
--
[attachment=0][/attachment]
Thanks Bill.
About QX and ventilation.
I have not had anissue here in SE Qld.
What my bees are doing regularly is eating out odd parts on the edges of my all wax frames: corners, on top, at the bottom, on sides...only to fill them in later.
I wonder...how is ventiation, air and bee movemnet impacted in the case of plastic frames, FLOW hives?
Just thinking...slowly...we had some hot weather:)
Quote from: blackforest beekeeper on November 15, 2018, 03:24:24 PM
if there is a flow and enough bees, they will move up.
There are many a case especially with new beeks that they swarm with an empty super above. I would be leary taking your advice with new equipment.
As I am extending rapidly, I am using new equipment all the time....
LOOKING for swarm-tendencies is a must in all cases, circumstances provided.
New equipment with new bees with little knowledge there of?
I consider it the duty of any animal-keeper to learn all the theoretical basics (and preferably some practical ones under guidance) BEFORE getting the animal.
I have to confess I had a lot of on-the-job-training, too and did make mistakes.
Its probably been already stated, but the bees will move up when they need more space. Manipulations of all sorts may or may not help, but you cannot push bees to conform to your thinking. You may try and even think you succeed, but never forget we get to work "with" bees.
So many factors affect, but nothing beats a strong flow to get it happening.
Patience, Patience. So many new beeks are demanding and anxious re their bees, Chill out, relax!
Time will even out your human demands of the bees.
I've added supers to my hives but the bees don't seem to be drawing out comb and my area is in a honey flow. I moved frames up but it's been 3 weeks and still the same or very little comb drawn out. Is it because I don't use wax sheets it takes them longer. Or should I feed them sugar. Just thought they would be able to get honey this year but seems probably not the rate they are going
The bees can draw their own comb faster than they can draw on foundation. Just put a wood strip in the slot and melted bees wax to paint just the edge.
Jim
well. in a strong flow they might be overwhelmed a bit. but they will be able to cope with building their own comb. just give them LITTLE to work on. In other words: I would remove space.
Boxes full of bees? that`s where they should be at.
Hello everyone, I am a brand new BK from Sydney area.
I have learned lots just through reading these posts, but still can't decide if my bees are doing OK or not.
I finally got my first package early December... after a long wait. Everything went well since the package installation into my 8 frames Langstroth brood box. I fed them 1:1 sugar syrup for the first month, but then it seemed that everything was in bloom, the foragers were very active and the frames were being drawn - so I stopped feeding.
I have been inspecting every 2 weeks roughly. They seemed to be going well but lately, I see very little progress from one inspection to the next. The last 2 times, the 8 frames were nearly all drawn, but a couple remaining empty (particularly the outer ones). Otherwise there is ripening nectar, pollen stores, capped honey, and brood at all stages. But there is not much of anything. And I don't think the population has grown. I added an ideal super 4 weeks ago, thinking that they needed it (since the brood box was nearly all drawn), but there is still nothing drawn on it.
Is it possible that I am at the stage where all the old package bees have died ( it is now about 10 weeks) and that there still isn't enough young bees for the hive to have shown any obvious sign of growth? I would not worry if we were in Spring but we are at the end of Summer and I don't know if they still have the time to build up population until Winter... I was told I needed them to go into Winter with 2-3 ideal supers full of honey...
Should I feed?
I would hate to have to add more bees, or to requeen as this stage...
Any suggestions?
Many thanks in advance for sharing your knowledge :)
Helene
Welcome to Beemaster.
Sounds like there is no food coming in. Time to start feeding them to get ready for winter. Do not use a front entrance. Place an empty super on top of the inner board and place a quart of 2 to 1, sugar to water over the center hole and put the top on. Once winter sets in, you can then use fondant in the jar.
Jim
Thank you so much for your answer Jim.
Ok I will start feeding 2:1 sugar syrup. I have a great top feeder containing several litres so I will use that (I bought it as an upgrade to the ziplock plastic bags as it does not require disturbing the bees).
May I ask why you suggest to remove the entrance reducer? Will that not tempt robbers? At the moment, there is no traffic congestion at the entrance, although it is quite busy (I have three entrance sizes, and I have it on ?medium?).
Again, thanks for sharing your knowledge 😊
Helene
Actually did I misunderstand about the front entrance? Was that referring to not using an entrance feeder - rather than reduced? Thanks.
if the hive is small, give the syrup in small quantities, so it doesnt spoil.
NO flow? I thought Australia was a bees paradise`? do inquire locally.
Helene,
I use reducers year around. Too many problems with robbing without them.
Jim
Thank you Jim for the tip regarding entrance reducer.
Blackforest beekeeper,
I agree that there seem to always be some food for the bees in Australia (but my knowledge and experience are very limited!) In my garden alone, there are lots of flowers for them, and I am in a semi-rural / very green suburban area - so no doubt there are some sources of nectar and pollen (although we have had a terribly hot and dry season). I do see them come home quite loaded, however the population is not growing. And beekeepers here definitely use some sugar syrup at times.
Blackforest Beekeeper, what else do you suggest then? I don't think I could even get another package of bees at this time of year (end of Feb is the end of Summer here). What else could be wrong with them? They do look healthy, the brood pattern is nice and compact (but small) and there is one or two heavy frames full of honey. But no expansion...
Thanks!
may they be reducing their broodnest already for fall?
There may be something wrong with the queen. or do you have diseases around? varroa?
in your case it might be good to have an experienced beekeeper from your area take a look.
how many frames do the bees cover? if there is no hard winter bees can overwinter on quite small numbers, really. if they are healthy. e.g. if I had one deep full of bees at this time of sun?s cycle (like you have now), they overwinter really easily. you could do it with half a deep, really.