eltalia
Field Bee
There are two facets to answering that question.
The first is the situation where the bees are allowed to backfill the BC with stores.
A necessary thing in winter prep it is 'harmfull' when allowed on Establishment
or Expansion - your story is around Establishment.
The second is the development you look to ask on in encouraging the queen
to lay. Begin with looking at the BC as a nursery, nothing else. In the nursery
there is the broodnest/"brood pattern"(BN), an area of combs the bees will cycle
the queen through at the rate they choose depending on the environment around
the apiary.
Successfull startups use that environmental factor, anything else is a roll of the dice.
The usual lateral football (Union/League) shaped BN has to then be changed in
forcing the bees to expand the BN to fill the BC, drawing all combs.
There exist a number of paths in getting this done, I layout our preference. OMMV
There exists a "warm side(WS) cold side(CS)" formation of combs in every beehive.
The concept is to use this in pushing the BN towards the WM by adding a new frame
between the last BN frame on the WM and it's neighbour... this moves the BN laterally
towards the CS. The manipulation is repeated until the box is packed with drawn combs.
When done, frames on the CS - only holding stores - are then used to insert on the WS,
again pushing the BN laterally towards the CS yet expanding the new lay of the BN
towards the WM. When bees have capped off stores in the BC it is these frames which
are selected to move up into the super.
Where the choice is to not run full depth (FD) as supers these capped off fames are
archived to be fed back in winter or those times when the BN naturally shrinks, forage
being at low levels.
Running double mediums (ideals/manley/wsp) boxes or worse, triple, requires the same
technique but at one level at a time, get the lower filled first then work on the upper.
Depending on flows this could require simultaneous shift of frames in both levels to
get the BN to move uniformly. At no time under *any* circumstance insert drawn or new
foundation into the central area of the BN. Bees own the Plan of lay, interrupting that by
splitting the real estate may not seem a big deal to the doer but bees see it way differently
and usually abandon or shrink the extents of the BN where new work is placed centrally.
Got it?
Bill
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