Beginners Mistake

[Psycad]

Salaam fellow beekeepers

I opened the hive in the weekend, hoping to harvest another frame of honey.

I have in the hive : 10 frames. 5 are the original I bought with the nuke and 5 have been added by me (gradually)

Now 1 frame with foundation is complete empty but the queen started laying eggs in the honeyframes. All of them full for 90 percent with capped honey.

So now, I cant harvest a frame at all and will have to wait till after summer.

Wonder why the queen start laying eggs in honey frames while she has enough place on brood frames

 

[For want of a better word]

What type of hive are you using?
I have been experimenting with OSB Rose hives, in which the queen is allowed to move up into the frames where the bees would store honey, simple process to move the capped stores out to the side as once capped the queen does not have room to lay eggs in them, a more natural way to keep bees that does not use queen excluders which ( the books say) can damage the workers wings.
I do not extract honey from the brood frames.

does this help?
Yeghes da

 

[masterBK]

No excluder being used or queen got above one?

 

[Psycad]

Salaam fellow beekeepers and thanks in advance for the help

I think my hive is a Langstroth with 10 frames of 50 x 23 mm
(2 inch by 1 inch roughly)

Since its new, I have no super on it so no queen excluder. Unless these exist in vertical instead of horizontal ?

The hive is doing very well. No varroa and the number of bees doubled if not tripled since I have the hive.

 

[drex]

Do not understand your use of the terms "honey frame" and " brood frame" in the one box. If a cell is empty and the queen wants, she will lay an egg in it, or the workers might fill it with nectar.
Usually outer frames are full of honey and the brood nest more central. However when she really gets going a decent queen will fill the whole box with brood, hence we add supers above the brood nest before then for the bees to store the honey.
However, after swarming say, the workers will start "backfilling" . That is, putting nectar in cells from which brood has hatched. So in the one box there is no such thing as a definitive honey or brood frame.

 

[Psycad]

Salaam Drex

I see.

I believed bees made honey frames (a frame only for honey) and brood frames (a frame with eggs, larva, honey and pollen)

Meaning that I wrongly assumed that the queen would never lay eggs in frames which are solely for honey.

Now that I think about, your explanation make sense.

From the above, I can understand that my hive is full. Regardless of the 1 empty frame with foundation.
I also means I have to add a box on top of my hive.
But in a few days the honey flow is over and my bees will struggle to survive. We had yesterday 49 celcius (120 fahrenheiss) and summer is yet to begin.
But then, adding a box will increase ventilation in hive.
Difficult

 

[drex]

A frame of foundation is useless to the bees as they cannot store or lay in it until the cells are drawn. Hence to them, at present, even with one frame of foundation the hive is "full" .

 

[Psycad]

A frame of foundation is useless to the bees as they cannot store or lay in it until the cells are drawn. Hence to them, at present, even with one frame of foundation the hive is "full" .

Salaam Drex and again thank you

I understand but I was believing bees could drawn a full frame with foundation in two week or so.

But the bees didnt start working on that frame and queen went to a frame with honey and put eggs there.

Which leads me to ask : in how much time can bees drawn a full frame (both sides) with wax ?

 

[drex]

In this country, at this time of year, with a good flow on, in a strong colony, it can only take a couple of days, for the bees in my national hives. However they will only draw it when they feel they need it. It is drawn quicker when placed next to the Brood nest.
They will not expand the number of frames they have to cover unless they have the resources, which includes number of bees.

 

[Psycad]

Salaam and thank you Drex

Its exactly what I also thought and that is why I expected the bees to build comb instead of the queen moving into the side frames and finding empty spots on frames 90 percent with capped honey.

Appreciate your help