Cranky Queen

[Potlicker1]

Hi everyone,

Can someone tell me if a queen will not lay in drawn comb that was used as a honey comb the year before?

Thanks for the help

[Kathyp]

she will.  thats almost all i used this year.  + remember, you'll have all drawn comb in your hive next year.  you won't replace it unless it's really messed up or pretty dirty.  around here seems most rotate comb out every 2 to 3 years. 

[Potlicker1]

I'm curious why she won't move up and lay in there as well. She seems to want to stay in the lower hive body. Oh well, I guess I'll just trust her.

[Kathyp]

trust but verify  :-)  that they don't just cram themselves into the bottom.  i know thats not the way it usually works, but as i mentioned, i had to move some brood up to get mine to move up.

[Brian D. Bray]

My first question is how large is the brood chamber in the original box? 
2nd-How are the food stores?
If your queen hasn't developed her brood chamber so that she is using both sides of 6 frames and the inner sides of the next 2 frames then she is probably not ready to move up.  There can be numerous reason for this.  The 1 I'm experiencing right now is that there's not enough nectar coming in for the queen to want to expand the brood chamber or to allow for the making of wax to expand the brood chamber.

There are ways to entice the queen up into the top box, but unless there is sufficient forage and, therefore, egg production to prompt it, doing so will have a more negative impact than positive.

[Michael Bush]

I've never seen a queen refuse to lay in comb that had honey it it.  But then she won't expand the brood nest unless the workers let her and they won't let her unless they think they have the resources to care for the brood.

[Potlicker1]

Yeah that makes sence. It is a first year colony and they're still getting settled in. I think i'll just let them do their  thing and keep an eye on it.