Text book perfect!

[Sean Kelly]

I have all of you to thank for having such an awesome hive!  You guys have been such a HUGE help.  My girls are doing VERY well!  2 weeks into it now and half my frames are completely drawn out.  They are already full of honey on the outside frames and the middle is packed with brood.  I even have one frame that has capped brood!  And TONS of pollen!!!  I sat next to my hive and watched the girls bring it in by the bucket full, bright orange stuff I think from my maple.

And guess what?  In like 10 seconds from opening the hive up, I found the queen!  Spotted her right away!  Couldnt believe it.

A question that came to me when I was checkin them out was, what would happen if I moved the drawn frames to the outside and the empty ones to the center?  Would that make them want to draw the middle frames or would they just hang out on the sides?  Would there be any pros or cons to doing this?  Couldnt find anything in my books about doing this.

Thanks again guys!  I just bought new batteries for my digital camera and will take pics tomorrow (weather permitting).

Sean Kelly

[Fish]

I would think the answer to your question is weather dependent.  We don't expect any more cool weather here in Tennessee.  No more clusters to interfere with by putting in an undrawn frame.  They just hate having one of those between two frames of brood.  And they will do their best to draw it out as quickly as possible. 

It is a great move if the weather is warm enough.  If there are still some cool days ahead try moving frames from the outside to just outside the center.  That way you can interject undrawn frames without breaking up a cold-driven cluster.

[Mklangelo]

Congrats on your early success!

[Sean Kelly]

The temp here at night hasnt dropped below 45 degrees and day times have been near the 60's.  It wont get any colder now that winter is over.  Here in the pacific northwest it stays pretty mild all year long.  Our winters are warm enough that we normally dont have to wrap our hives.  It rarely snows (last year was a MAJOR exception).
3 days ago I moved one of the half-drawn frames over one and put just one undrawn frame in it's place just to experiment.  Didn't mess with the frames w/brood.  I'm gunna go out and check on them today if the sun burns through the clouds.

Thanks for your wisdom guys!  Awesome!

Sean Kelly

[beemaster]

Sean:

All GREAT NEWS!!! It is rewarding knowing that you were able to better prepare from all the information and feedback found here - I know I learn every day and always will. I mentioned a simple method last night to Dallas concerning the way I stain and eurathan my hive bodies: I mentioned I put on the erathane (just as he and most put on paint) with the hive bodies UPSIDE DOWN so that the excess paint.stain.eurathan, whatever "drips" into the "Flat indented part of the handholds" rather than drip down from the tapered "smiley" part of the handhold.

It just came up in conversation, and it is a good tip from lots of experience coating the hive bodies. I think I'll start a child board on OBSURE TIPS AND GADGETS that individuals use that may really make life easy or better for others.

I'm busy today prepping for the next shipment of bees which should be here this week. I have an odd collection of fully sealed honey frames, 1/3rd drawn comb with the rest filled with bounties of honey and 5 frames with plastic foundation. I'm constantly thinking how to mix all these so that 2 packages move in and make the most of all the resources - I also have 4 mediums with prebuilt wax foundation coming. so I'm almost  ready for upward growth, I just need to make sure that everything is ideal for the packages to move in and get right to work!

I've got the camera and tripod ready and as I type waiting for the post office to call with Dall and Austins super colony - it was drizzling and now sunnnnnnnny and warm - sweeeeeet!!!!!! I'll hopefully have a rough cut (raw footage) tonight available for the VENTRILO GANG - a link they can get when were in Voice chat - let's call it a benefit for those who have moved to that next level of communicating. The final cut will be in a few days AFTER I do the editing and narration, they whole forum will get that one  ;)

I've worked this video out in my mind several times and I learned after looking at similar theme documentaries - I noted quickly that NO DIALOG or little was filmed during the taking and the camera work was a combination of close up, mid-range and distant footage - what was amazing is that they moved the camera VERY LITTLE, most of the work was done in editing, switching from the different clips to emphathise each step and occasionally shooting special footage: in the end all the different clips shuffled in a fashion to appear as if multi-cameras were used, when all it was, was editing different angle shots and tieing it together seemlessly with a nice sound track and a good scripted narration.

I mention all this because I hoe more people take advantage of the technology the possess already. From stills to movies, the content shared here and around the net are the best teaching tools we have to further a point beyond our writing skills.

ZuniBee has a wonderful site WAITING for more and more content to COMPLETE the chain of learning - I think his growing film library is a fantastic idea, I only wish I had the resources and skills to offer such a service, but THAT is not needed with ZuniBee around. I hope everyone takes place of his service if they have content to share and of course ALWAYS post links to it here :)

What were we talking about, OH YEAH - GREAT JOB SEAN, glad to have you aboard and your helper in the avatar sure has some friends to talk with in our "ever growing Kids Chat forum"