Bees not drawing my supers?

[HM Honey]

Hi all

I have not had a good year this year as far as honey goes. I had two colonies in May that both swarmed while I was on holiday. I sort of wrote off my chances of getting honey tbh, but put supers on them both about three weeks ago. It's only my second year so had no drawn super frames meaning that all the frames in the supers I put on were fresh undrawn frames. My thinking was just that the bees would draw them out this year meaning I had drawn frames ready for next season.

The problem is the bees are not sticking to the script? Both hives have plenty of bees but they are not drawing the super frames? Is there anything I can do to encourage them? I'm not bothered about getting any honey so feeding 1:1 syrup was my first thought but I didnt know if this would just take up laying space.

I'm on 14x12 by the way.

Any advice?

 

[enrico]

Take the QE off. If you dot want honey any stores can be see for winter, meanwhile they will draw out the supers for you. Personally I would put the super under the bb. Remove it in spring once stores are used up and they will be in bb again.

 

[sandysman]

Take the QE off. If you dot want honey any stores can be see for winter, meanwhile they will draw out the supers for you. Personally I would put the super under the bb. Remove it in spring once stores are used up and they will be in bb again.

I did exactly that a couple of years ago. Worked out fine.
Andy

 

[Chris B]

They won't draw the super frames unless there is a good nectar flow (which there hasn't been for about a week here). When/if you get a flow they'll do it. Not much you can do about it except perhaps move the hives to the heather if nothing happening where they are.

 

[Tom Bick]

Still plenty of time for the bees to want to draw out the supers but they do need a reason to do so and your bees swarming in May and a 14x12 BB they probably have all the room they need right now. However if they continue to build up and you get a good nectar flow they will want that super.

Good luck I always tell people if honey is all they want from beekeeping they will be disappointed most of the time.

 

[HM Honey]

Good luck I always tell people if honey is all they want from beekeeping they will be disappointed most of the time.

Thanks Tom. TBH, I don't care whether or not I get honey. Don't get me wrong, it would be nice, if only to contribute a little to the cost of the hobby, but in all honesty, that's not why I keep bees.... Honey would just be a bonus....

 

[HM Honey]

Take the QE off. If you dot want honey any stores can be see for winter, meanwhile they will draw out the supers for you. Personally I would put the super under the bb. Remove it in spring once stores are used up and they will be in bb again.

Thanks enrico....I think I will take the QE off. Do you think putting the undrawn frames under the BB will make a difference?

 

[aberreef]

It would be nice to get the frames drawn but I wouldn't worry too much about it. If they need the room they will move up and draw the comb but I doubt it at this time of year. Concentrate on getting healthy colonies to overwinter

Next summer, assuming everything goes well through the winter and spring, they will draw the foundation extremely quickly when there's a flow on. This year some of my colonies have drawn a full box of foundation in 3 days and totally filled it in a week. They now have 4 supers and a brood box over each colony (single box nationals). Earlier in the year I was worried the colonies were small for the time of year and wouldn't make it

Next year you may want to consider putting supers on earlier to slow swarming and maybe do some kind of AS before you go away, regardless of whether there's QCs or not. I use the Demaree method which works well for me but requires the colony to have 2 supers in place. I don't lose any bees from the hive though so the colony gets very large without re-combining or moving hives