Drawn comb in a couple of days ??

[Dr. B in Wisconsin]

Hello
On day 47 I added a honey super along with a queen excluder, the comb was not drawn at that point. I removed the excluder on day 64 because the comb was drawn only in the middle a little bit. I am a new beek, I was a little disappointed at this point. I did not know that the comb must be drawn before adding the excluder, ( thanks iddee ) someone else suggested a few days ago to me removing it may help. Today is day 68 only 4 days later and I just could not wait to look. All of the frames are drawn out and all have honey in them, starting to cap a little bit. Is it normal for them to move this fast? I will add a second super below the first super and leave the excluder off, I am thinking that the queen will probably not move over the undrawn comb and up above to the one with honey to lay brood, sound logical ?

[riverrat]

queens dont read the same books we do but most generally they will not venture that far away from the brood nest. I would guess if you still have a flow on they may start pulling wax on the foundation before storing in the top comb. Bees dont like open spaces

[slacker361]

so let me get this right , once they fill up the brood chambers and it is time to put on a honey super, I do not want a queen excluder? So what prevents the queen from laying in the honey? and if she wont go up that far, why do they have queen excluders.......I am so cornfused    :?

[riverrat]

I ran without queen excluders for several years if you got a good band of honey across the top of the frame above the brood a lot of the time the queen will not cross the honey and move on up. If by chance she did move up and laid a little brood in the first honey super I would make sure she was down and put a super of capped honey between the brood box and the super she laid in when the bees hatched out if there was a flow on they will back fill with honey. once you have a super of honey between your empty supers and the brood nest you wont have much trouble with her moving up. But I have since started using excluders. It a lot easier and I can stack several supers of drawn comb on the hive without worrying about the queen stove piping the hive.

[iddee]

Doc, you can put the excluder on now if you want to use it. They know their honey is up there and will go through it.

Slacker, you have to put the super under drawn comb unless you are doing comb honey, which newbees should not try. There is too much to it for a beginner to be successful.

PS. I don't use excluders anytime.

[rgy]

 :?  i'm with slacker!  as a newbee, I have one hive that is 5-6 frames drawn out with eggs, larvae, honey in the second super.  I was going to give them another 4-5 days and then add the excluder and a honey super with plastic frames thqt have no drawn comb.  Isn't this what I am supposed to do??  I want some honey darn it!!!!

[iddee]

If you have not reversed the boxes in some way, then your bottom box is empty or also full of brood. They do not make and store honey below the brood nest. In order to get a full super, all you have to do is let them get enough honey in there to surround the nest and fill a super afterward. It will be the only thing in the super.

[FRAMEshift]

They do not make and store honey below the brood nest.

I did not realize this.  Don't bees in the wild prefer to put their brood nest toward the top of a hollow tree cavity... with the brood below the entrance and with the honey at the bottom?

[riverrat]

there will always be honey above the brood nest in any hive wild or beeing kept by a keeper. In the wild they dont have a mask man putting supers on above them and stealing their honey. :-D

[FRAMEshift]

there will always be honey above the brood nest in any hive wild or beeing kept by a keeper. In the wild they dont have a mask man putting supers on above them and stealing their honey. :-D

Well, each brood frame has a band of pollen over the brood and then a band of honey over the pollen.  I think of this as temporary stores for feeding that particular batch of brood.  If the brood extends to the frame above, there will be the same pattern again.  But then there is mass storage of honey only... the frames that are dedicated to honey.  I think... unless I'm being forgetful again... that in the wild this mass storage is below the brood.  In a Langstroth hive where the brood is placed on the bottom to start with, the bees have no choice but to put the mass stores on top... where it is convenient for the masked man to harvest.   But maybe the bands of pollen and honey are an artifact of the use of frames rather than having a continuous brood nest.

[Kathyp]

mass storage is above and down the sides.  brood below.  as the weather changes the bees eat their way toward the top of the hive space and end up near the top for winter.  the have honey above and to the sides of the cluster.

that's why i add brood boxes under and we add honey supers over.  don't use an excluder (if at all) until your foundation is drawn.

[FRAMEshift]

mass storage is above and down the sides.  brood below.  as the weather changes the bees eat their way toward the top of the hive space and end up near the top for winter.  the have honey above and to the sides of the cluster.

that's why i add brood boxes under and we add honey supers over.  don't use an excluder (if at all) until your foundation is drawn.

Makes sense that they would use the honey for insulation.  Have you ever seen a 3-D diagram of a hive structure?  I think that would help beginners like me. 

I'm starting to experiment  with horizontal hives.... just started our first split in a horizontal hive.  So I'm wondering how this translates to the horizontal plane.  Where does the mass storage go when there is no super?

[slacker361]

still a little iffy on the queen extruder , I understand not to put it on till the comb is drawn out, but why would you put it on after that, will the queen only go lAy eggs in the honey super if the comb is old?

[iddee]

I will try to explain it. Consider a basketball in a barrel of water, with the ball barely submerged. Now you have an upside down hive. The basketball being the brood and the water being stores. As the water goes away, the ball goes down. As water is added, the ball rises. Now consider a hive the same way, but inverted. The brood will always be with the bottom of it level with the bottom of the honey. As the honey is removed, the nest will rise. As honey comes in, the brood will lower. If it is otherwise, the beekeeper has interfered.

[dp]

Ok, my first year too here.  So I added a super and when about half of the frames were drawn out, I added the excluder.  They have continued to draw out the other frames, albeit slower.  They are stuffing the drawn comb with honey and they are in the process of capping it. 

When I go to add another super (with brand new plastic frames), do I take the excluder back off until they have drawn out the comb?

Something else isn't clear (I'm counting my chicks before they are hatched), once I've robbed the honey, and I put the super back on to let the bees clean up the frames, how do I store the supers so that they have drawn frames for next year?  When they say clean up, are they going to take all of the drawn comb?  Can I just store the super with drawn comb in a garbage bag until next spring when the flow starts?

[Kathyp]

do I take the excluder back off until they have drawn out the comb?

i would.  they are working up there and may continue, but bees often don't like plastic much.  also, check the top of the brood box below your honey supers.  if they have stored honey over the brood nest, you are pretty safe just leaving the excluder off as the queen very rarely will cross the honey.

i don't bother with an excluder.  just one more thing to mess with.  i guess i would if i were doing cut comb to sell, but just for me, it's not worth it.

[slacker361]

iddee  great visual going on there, thanks, I think I have a grasp on it now, so there is really no reason to even use a extruder at all?  thanks for helping out this newBEE   

[dp]

Sorry to keep asking so many questions, but it's still unclear....once I've robbed the honey, and I put the super back on to let the bees clean up the frames, how do I store the supers so that they have drawn frames for next year?  When they say clean up, are they going to take all of the drawn comb?  Can I just store the super with drawn comb in a garbage bag until next spring when the flow starts?

I don't leave the super on through the winter do I?

[Michael Bush]

Bees want a consolidated brood nest.  The only time a queen goes far from the brood nest to lay is if there is old comb that can't be easily reworked in the brood nest and not enough drones.  In this case the workers will build some drone up in the supers, take the queen there and proceed to raise drones in the supers...

[slacker361]

so should you take out old brood comb if it is damaged or not being used?