Big colony

[Levitt53]

Looked at my hives for the first time today. There is one colony which has always been big. I gave them an extra brood box on top of the other last year as the one they were on was old and I wanted to get rid of the frames. Should have done a shook swarm probably but hey ho. Anyway they just filled that new top bb with honey. Fair enough I though and left them like that for the winter. Didn’t feed them in autumn or give them any fondant. Looked today and it’s still pretty much wall to wall honey. Some brood on a few frames in the top box but I couldn't contemplate moving it as it was way too heavy so I’m not sure what is in the bottom box. I could definitely see some honey but hope there is more brood down there. I popped the QE on and gave them a drawn super and hope that they’ll move all that lovely honey up for me and make some more room for themselves. I hadn’t thought I would possibly need a QE and a super today but I think I’ve done the right thing.

 

[enrico]

You did the right thing in my opinion but you could always remove some of the filled brood frames and replace them with empty ones.
E

 

[Levitt53]

That’s true. I’ll bear that in mind for next week when I will look at them again and see how they are doing. Thanks.

 

[drex]

Think I have got this right. So, you most likely left the queen down in the bottom box to lay in the old frames you were not happy with last year?????

 

[Levitt53]

They were effectively on double brood so no QE between the two BBS. I couldn’t find the queen. Never have been able to find one in two years. (I need to sort that problem out this year I know). I assumed they would move up which they seem to be trying to do. Just not much space.

 

[drex]

Bruised and sprayed a lot of my old set combs, yesterday . They will start going through the stores when she gets going, or as enrico suggests add some empty drawn comb into top box

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Should have done a shook swarm probably

Why? do they have EFB?

 

[Levitt53]

Why? do they have EFB?

No. The conb they are on was what the hive came with in 2015. It was fairly black then. I have no idea how old it is so obviously want to get rid of it. It has always been a string colony so think they would have been ok with a shook swarm early last year from what I understand.

 

[Levitt53]

Sorry 2016.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

No. The conb they are on was what the hive came with in 2015. It was fairly black then. I have no idea how old it is so obviously want to get rid of it. It has always been a string colony so think they would have been ok with a shook swarm early last year from what I understand.

Shook swarm is never the answer - unless there's EFB. totally unneccessary, wasteful and stressful manipulation on the colony, but much favoured by the beekeeping by numbers dinosaurs and their disciples over on the dark side.
If you need to change the comb, then gradual, systematic replacement is the key or, if, as you say all the comb needs replacing, then a modified Bailey change.

 

[Levitt53]

I tried to change it gradually last year but they built up so fast I think I only managed to change 1, which is why I went this way. I hopefully can sort it out when I manage to get some of the honey out so I can lift it. I’ll look next weekend and take some frames out if they’ve not moved much.

 

[birdsandbees]

I have a couple on older frames and frame types I no longer use, Bailey change will be my weapon of choice in the next few weeks as I don't want to lose bees and they don't have high Varroa load or disease to worry about.