first inspection-pleasantly surprised

[Algonam]

West of Ottawa, Canada.
Today was sunny, and 16 degrees, with a light breeze.

This is our first Spring and our first Spring inspection. (we started with nucs around June 1st last year)
Both hives wintered with 2 boxes with no queen excluders. We noticed our hives were looking busy but had no idea they would be doing so well.
They were both flowing with bees. Lots of brood, lots of bees and even lots of honey, so much that we had to make room. We actually got to take a frame of capped honey home for extraction. We are so surprised! On one hive I installed the queen excluder on top of the 2nd box and switched a few frames around and gave them a couple of empty frames to work with in the 2nd box. I moved 2 of the honey frames up into the 3rd box along with 7 other empty frames.
In the other hive, there wasn't any brood in the second box, but lots of activity, and lots of fresh honey, so soon we will have lots of capped honey. I don't have enough frames to add on a super but will be buying more on Tuesday and installing a 3rd box right away. On this one I put a queen excluder between the 1st and 2nd boxes.
The trees are budding and have for 2 weeks or so. No flowers yet, not even close. My best guess is they are foraging on soft maple buds and maybe bleep willows. Apple blossoms should be out in a few weeks.
We are shocked that they are already making alot of honey!
We are just waiting for something to go wrong!!! Our electric fence was bent with 1 post broken, so we assume a bear tried to get at the honey with no success!
Honey on my toast tomorrow!

[FRAMEshift]

That's good news.  Watch out for swarming though.  Keep the brood nest open or your bees will start thinking of moving on.

[Algonam]

Frameshift,

Yeah, for that reason (on hive #2) I am considering moving the queen excluder to the top of the 2nd box when I get the new frames for my third box. The last thing I need now is swarming!
No swarm cells or anything weird looking yet....
Honey on toast with PB was great today! We have been without honey for a few months now!!

[BeeMaster2]

Yeah, for that reason (on hive #2) I am considering moving the queen excluder to the top of the 2nd box when I get the new frames for my third box.

With 2 brood boxes why are you going to add an excluder. If the third box is already filling up with honey, the Q will not go above it. Here in Florida we only use 1 deep brood or 2 medium and most of us don't use an excluder. Just slowes the bees down.
Try it.
Jim

[Algonam]

Oh, I didn't know she wouldn't go up to the 3rd box. I never thought an excluder would slow the bees down...
Easy enough to remove an excluder off of my first hive too. I just didn't want any more mixed frames of brood and honey...want just honey frames from Box #3.

[stella]

Way to go Algonam. Glad you got in there to check things out and harvested a little honey.  :-D I will soon follow your lead.

[hardwood]

Saw, I always use two deeps for brood as do most I know of. even at that she will lay up in the supers on occasion.

Scott

[luvin honey]

How exciting! Good for you :)

[Algonam]

I am asking these questions with all honesty and don't mean to come across as rude.....At what point is the queen excluder used? Why does it exist? Will the queen actually continue to climb up through the 3rd box if there is no excluder? Is it ok to have brood and honey on the same frames?

[FRAMEshift]

I am asking these questions with all honesty and don't mean to come across as rude.....At what point is the queen excluder used?

I don't see a reason to use one.

Why does it exist?

Because someone thought that they could make decisions for the bees better than they could for themselves.  And because it's something else to sell.

Will the queen actually continue to climb up through the 3rd box if there is no excluder?

She might, but probably not.  

Is it ok to have brood and honey on the same frames?

All early brood frames have a band of honey at the top.  And usually a band of pollen too.  This makes it easier for the nurse bees to make bee bread and feed the larvae. Only after the hive is larger do the bees start making wall to wall brood with no honey.  And all honey frames with no brood.   If you only harvest from the all-honey frames there is no problem.  Leave the rest for the bees.

[Algonam]

Frameshift, this makes sense. I know I had similar conversations with some of you last year during the summer, but the situation was different with the bees starting from nucs and me being new to this. Maybe that(no excluders) was the reason they wintered so well, maybe it was just the warmer winter we had. BTW, I had rigid styrofoam taped to the sides of the hives and a piece under the lid for the winter with a breather hole at the inner cover and a small main entrance. No condensation signs at all.
Since it still cools down to below freezing most nights I am keeping the hives insulated for another few weeks.
In a few days when the weather clears up I'll go and remove the excluders. Once the apple blossoms and lilac start to bloom we'll be in a flow, and I want to be prepared. I haven't experienced the Spring flow yet as I am still within my first year of beekeeping. (coming close to 11 months now).
This is starting to feel like a honey production year!

[beyondthesidewalks]

I used QEs early in my beekeeping experience because I had a few supers with drone brood in them.  I found they caused more problems than they solved.  I haven't used them since and I find that brood in the supers is very uncommon for me.  On the odd occasion that I find it, it is normally drone brood which I cut out with the hive tool before I extract.  Another version of varroa control.

On the rare occasion that it is worker brood, I just leave it in one of my hives with any frames that still had nectar in them until the brood hatches out.  Seems like QEs are extra money and time spent on something that isn't that big a problem in the first place and they definitely slow down the bees.  You also have to be very careful with them.  If they get bent up, they are worthless.

I have a few of them for the purpose of keeping a queen in a hive after catching a swarm.  I started using the WTK metal disc entrance covers with the built in QEs and now rarely use them for that purpose.

[Algonam]

I'd like to be able to attach a picture to ask a question about but can't find imageshack anymore? What have I missed? Is there now another way to do this?

[kemptville]

Great to hear this Algonam! It's definitely a relief to know your bees have survived and are flourishing. Let's hope that bear doesn't return to ruin it.

Are you feeding syrup to your bees? Just wondering since you have removed a frame of honey so early in the season. I was under the impression that harvesting so early could be harmful to the bees. But if you're feeding them I suppose it's OK.

[buzzbee]

You can go directly to imageshack and post the photo,then add the forum link to your post. Imageshacks plugin for forums did not work correctly when the software update went through. When it works proper again it may be added back on.

[Algonam]

Hey Kemptville,

Sorry I missed your post. I've been busy doing other things lately and hadn't checked back to see if there was any activity on beemasters!
Actually, We made a mistake. It turns out the honey was left over from last year. Yes, the bees are producing a little bit of honey, but very little as of 2 weeks ago. They are, however, very busy. No, we aren't feeding them. They are bringing in alot of yellow stuff on their own. We only tried 1 container of fondant on each hive and it took them forever to work away at this, so that must mean that they prefered to consume the old honey stores.
Having 2 hives is interesting. Since the very first day they have never been consistant with each other. The bees do their own thing in their respective hives. I am looking forward to the next 2 nucs coming in another month!....and I'll be looking to compare results with you since our nucs are coming from the same supplier!