My Beekeeping Yard and Frame Question

[JordanM]

Today i set up my hives for the six packages i will be receiving on April 20th. I had some brood drawn frames and some honey drawn frames and some with honey in the frames yet from a hive that died this winter. I put them in the Boxes like this:
B=Brood Frame
H=Honey Drawn Frame
D=Frame with Honey in it Yet
F= Frame with Foundation

              H,F,D,F,B,D,F,H,F,H or
              F,H,F,D,B,B,F,D,F,F
Is this ok or should i have arranged the frames in a different way?

Here is a picture of all my hives set up just waiting for bees

The top brood box is foundation.

[hankdog1]

if it was me i would put all the foundation in the center.  that way they will draw it out first as they work from the center out.

[Michael Bush]

The bees will rearrange as they see fit and draw what they need to fill the gaps.  I wouldn't lose too much sleep over it.

[JordanM]

My thinking with putting the brood frame and the honey frame in the center is the queen can start laying right away and they honey will be right there to feed the larva when they need it. And i put foundation outside of that so that the brood area doesnt get filled up to quickly and they can have some room to drawit out.

Also should i put the 2nd brood box with founadtion on them right when i install them?

[JordanM]

Here is some pictures from 7:00 this morning with the sun coming up.
The first picture is from the back of the hives looking east at the sun coming up.

The second picture is a farther out picture of the beehives from the front.

Does this look like the bees get enough sun?

[JP]

I would let them build up some before putting the top boxes. Your set up is beautiful.


...JP

[JordanM]

Thanks JP now if only i could catch some swarms this year and fill it up a little more.

[Cindi]

Jordan, absolutely beautiful set up, as JP said.  Now I am going to go with what he said about the bees.  A package of bees will take quite some time to get that bottom box filled up enough to add a second box.  You should remove the 2nd box, they do not need it right yet.

When we hived our package bees we were taught to house only in one box until they have built up.

A package of bees will have many old and young bees.  The queen is going to begin to lay as soon as she is out of the package, the drawn comb is good.  There will be a bit longer than three weeks before there are any baby bees born.  During this time you will find that the package bees will diminish in amounts of bees significantly, and I mean significantly.  They will begin to have lots of bees again, once the baby bees emerge, but until then, the colony becomes smaller and smaller.  The second box is not a good idea and I would remove it.  I would not put that second box on until I at least see newly emerged bees, just plain and simply -- too much room in there.  Package bees are much different than nucs because nucs come with brood already in the progress of growing.  My two cents.  Others may say differently, but that is what we were taught.  have that wonderfully beautiful and awesome day, life, great health.  Cindi

[JordanM]

Thanks for your advice cindi I will wait for a few weeks to put on the top box.

[Brian D. Bray]

When I'm putting bees iinto a hive that has drawn comb, foundation, and honey frames I set it up so the drawn comb is centered in the hive so that the queen can begin laying large patterns immediately.  I place the honey frames on the outsides of the hive, frames 1 & 10, which is where the bees put the storage frames, and the foundation goes in on each side between the drawn comb and the honey stores.  That places everything for optimum benefit for the bees and uses their natural tendencies to assist them.

But the, as MB says, they will straighten it out anyway.