Advice needed pls - replacing brood box

[nickyjay]

I have my first colony which is doing well. however, when I built the brood box I did not get the runners at the top where the bars fit in exactly the right position so there is a slight gap where the frames are not flush with the top surface. This has created a space larger than the normal bee space so the bees have started to build brace comb there.
I want to fix the brood box so the runners sit slightly higher to eliminate this problem. My solution is to buy another brood box, make it correctly this time and then switch the frames around so the old brood box can be adjusted.
Will there be any problems with making the switch? Is there anything I need to consider before doing so?
Thx.
Nick

 

[winmag270]

sounds ok, plus you'll then have additional kit available should you need to expand.....

(I'd recommend running two colonies, btw)

cheers

 

[greatbritishhoney]

I've done this a few times. This is how I did it...
Move whole hive to one side. Put a spare floor on the original site and move the supers (if any) onto the spare floor so that the foragers have somewhere to return to.
Then take the brood box and floor about 20ft away (where you will have already got your spare brood box ready). It can help to do this on a white sheet so that you don't lose the queen in the grass if you make a mistake. It's also a good opportunity to swap to a new floor if you need to.
Then swap the frames from the old box into the new and then take the new box and floor back to the original site and reassmble as before.

 

[milkermel]

should be straight forward, just watch out for your queen! dont want her dropping onto the floor! sounds silly i know but my first check this year and I ended up throwing her away. Well maybe not quite, but plonked crown board on floor without checking and she was on it at the time, only found out when I went to put board back in place and luckily saw a splash of blue!

 

[nickyjay]

Ok, thanks for advice so far. I only have one hive at the moment, I.e. One base etc. I am going to pick up the new bb today. How would I switch them over with only this equipment?
I was going set the new bb by the side of the current hive, sitting on a temporary base of somekind, then move each frame over into the new bb. Once all 11 frames are in, then remove the old bb from the hive base and put the new bb in its place. Have I overlooked anything doing it this way?
There are no supers btw.
N

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

Ok, thanks for advice so far. I only have one hive at the moment, I.e. One base etc. I am going to pick up the new bb today. How would I switch them over with only this equipment?
I was going set the new bb by the side of the current hive, sitting on a temporary base of somekind, then move each frame over into the new bb. Once all 11 frames are in, then remove the old bb from the hive base and put the new bb in its place. Have I overlooked anything doing it this way? N

Thats fine nickyjay - just check when removing the old box that her maj isnt still in it and try and keep the frames in the same order.

 

[nickyjay]

Thanks m. Abielle. Will do that then! N

 

[greatbritishhoney]

Ok, thanks for advice so far. I only have one hive at the moment, I.e. One base etc. I am going to pick up the new bb today. How would I switch them over with only this equipment?
I was going set the new bb by the side of the current hive, sitting on a temporary base of somekind, then move each frame over into the new bb. Once all 11 frames are in, then remove the old bb from the hive base and put the new bb in its place. Have I overlooked anything doing it this way?
There are no supers btw.
N

Sounds fine to me.
Just take it nice and slowly.

For the future, I'd always advise having a few bits of spare kit hanging around. You never know when you might need to do an artificial swarm or something like that.

 

[nickyjay]

Ok, all done! Minimal upset and hive seems to be going back to normal. It was also a good chance to get to inspect the hive frame by frame as they were moved accross. Could not see the queen but made sure that any bees that dropped outside of the hive were not her. Hopefully she's safe and sound.
The good news is that there were lots of new workers in the colony. The hive was started as a package 3 1/2 weeks ago so they have had to start brood from scratch.

The one thing is that they still only have 5 full frames of brood and stores plus some part formed frames either side. This is not much more than they had over a week ago. Is it normal for them to slow the drawing of comb once they get to this point?
N

 

[Swarm]

They'll draw it as they see necessary, according to how many bees can cover the brood. You could add dummy boards.

 

[winmag270]

or you could move the occupied frames to one side of the BB, so they only have to work frames at one end instead of two......

 

[nickyjay]

There is one dummy board in place already at the back of the BB. They appear to prefer building towards the entrance, which I believe I read somewhere which is reassuring. If needed I'll switch some of the undrawn frames towards the entrance side.
Where as before the frames had rugby ball shaped capped brood, the frames now are chock full of capped cells which makes it hard to tell what's brood and what's food.