mixing drawn and new foundation

[goertzen29]

Hello,

I made some new honey supers this year so I didnt have enough drawn comb to fill them all.  I thought I may get better results with the bees drawing the new foundation by mixing a couple frames of drawn foundation into each super.  However I'm finding they are filling the drawn foundation but not starting to draw at all on any of the new foundation, this seems to be the case in all 4 hives.

My question is this:  Whould I have been better off leaving all the drawn foundation together and all the new foundation together so they couldn't pick and choose what to use? 

My assumption is they'll start drawing when they need room but instead of drawing the supers they seems to be backfilling the brood nest.  This happened last year and they swarmed b/c the filled all their brood area with honey/ pollen....How do I prevent this?

[gardeningfireman]

I have mixed drawn and new foundation/foundationless frames also. I alternate them and have had no trouble.

[Michael Bush]

In the brood nest this works well.  In the supers it does not work so well.  They often draw out the drawn comb deeper and ignore the new foundation (or foundationless if you use that) and make very fat combs that won't come out unless you flip the box upside down and lift it off...

[goertzen29]

Well they are doing kind of what MB said so I think I'll try to take some hives apart and reorganize, keeping drawn comb together and empty together...always learning...

thanks

Jay