- Joined
- Aug 2, 2020
- Messages
- 120
- Reaction score
- 57
- Hive Type
- National
- Number of Hives
- 6
the backstory : our late cast swarm from last year made it though the winter well in its brood box, 4-5 weeks or so ago we'd had a quick look they seemed to be doing fine but there was a lot of murmorings about a really cold snap and starvtion so been new at this we were were probally over cautious and fed them just in case the plan was to give them fonant but nowhere had any so they got syrup ( this was maybe a mistake ).
On next opening colony to have a look a couple of weeks ago it was full they were building comb in the roof, at this point we thought they needed more room some time ago but hindsight give them another box ASAP, now here is possible mistake 2, to me it seems a lot of manipulations require more drawn brood comb been new we don't have any and at some point we are going to need some so rather than put a super on i had this idea of quickly makeing some 100 ish mm packers and putting one each side of a brood box so adding roughly the same amount real estate as a super and getting ourselves some drawn brood comb.
So one week we open it up again and they've pulled the lot out filed most of it with wet stores pollen amd some brood , the bottom box is also full, so i pulled the insulation boards out, filled the space with foundation put a QX on and a super.
Yesterday they had pritty much finised off working the foundation in the top brood box , lots of bees, brood wet stores and pollen and are working on drawing the super.
th bottom box is rammed with bees and quite a few charged queen cups in location that some would suggest they are swarm cells, ( we were probally to slow adding room )
my thinking is atm we have 1 hive so really need a few more, our hedge bees are very managable in 1 brood box but by time weve got half way through the lower box at amature speed they are getting grumpy. we would be best splitting it down,
would it be feasable to put it back to singel brood and make up 2 nucs , 1 with queen, bees brood, stores, and the 2nd with just QC , bees, brood, and stores
then the original colony would be back down to 11 frames ?
On next opening colony to have a look a couple of weeks ago it was full they were building comb in the roof, at this point we thought they needed more room some time ago but hindsight give them another box ASAP, now here is possible mistake 2, to me it seems a lot of manipulations require more drawn brood comb been new we don't have any and at some point we are going to need some so rather than put a super on i had this idea of quickly makeing some 100 ish mm packers and putting one each side of a brood box so adding roughly the same amount real estate as a super and getting ourselves some drawn brood comb.
So one week we open it up again and they've pulled the lot out filed most of it with wet stores pollen amd some brood , the bottom box is also full, so i pulled the insulation boards out, filled the space with foundation put a QX on and a super.
Yesterday they had pritty much finised off working the foundation in the top brood box , lots of bees, brood wet stores and pollen and are working on drawing the super.
th bottom box is rammed with bees and quite a few charged queen cups in location that some would suggest they are swarm cells, ( we were probally to slow adding room )
my thinking is atm we have 1 hive so really need a few more, our hedge bees are very managable in 1 brood box but by time weve got half way through the lower box at amature speed they are getting grumpy. we would be best splitting it down,
would it be feasable to put it back to singel brood and make up 2 nucs , 1 with queen, bees brood, stores, and the 2nd with just QC , bees, brood, and stores
then the original colony would be back down to 11 frames ?
