Brood in Supers

[stinger27]

Brood comb has set up in the supers with brood emerging, What should I do?  :shock:

[amymcg]

You can make sure your queen is below the supers and put on an excluder, once the brood hatches, the queen can't get back up there.  Wait a couple of weeks and you might be able to remove the excluder at that point

[Michael Bush]

>What should I do?

Be glad the queen has somewhere to lay and didnt' swarm.  Let them emerge.  If you want to keep her out of the supers start using 7/11 foundation or put an excluder on.  I'd just be happy I have more brood wherever it is.

I'll bet it's either the brood nest expanded that far, in which case you're lucky they did so they didn't swarm, or, if it's a little patch, I'll bet it's drone brood.  If it's drone brood you could have prevented that by having more drone comb in the brood nest.

[SherryL]

Stinger, how many brood boxes do you have on that hive?  Do you need to add another?  

If the frames in your box (or boxes) are full of brood or pollen or honey, then the queen has nowhere to lay and she'll move to whatever open space is available.  Sounds like you need to add another brood box.

If you don't have another box to add, and you do have another hive that you can swap frames with, take a full brood frame from the congested hive and swap it out with an open frame from another hive (assuming that doesn't cause the other hive to be congested).

Hope that helps...

sherry

[Brian D. Bray]

If the queen has access to the supers expect to find brood cells, at least occasionally.  It is better to have 3 and even 4 boxes of brood than have the hive swarm, especially this time of year when we're in the middle of what could be called swarm season.  I don't believe in queen cells and consider them swarm generators.  If the queen hadn't been able to lay brood in the super that (swarm) would have probably been the result.
Count your lucky stars.