busy full hive no stores

[whoosling]

My original hive is very full of bees, had a quick look when I took off the 2nd apiguard, bees all over all 11 frames, very little brood or stores hive very light so I am feeding. What I would like to know is should I put on a super to give them more room?, there were loads of bees outside the hive yesterday (but it was quite warm) or will they be ok now with just the brood box. Also I have a badger run going right through my 3 hives - no trouble yet - any ideas of how to deter the badges?

 

[beeno]

Hi whoosling,
I would not put a super on this time of the year. A lot of die off is imminent, but I would feed for stores and winter bees!

 

[madasafish]

You can deter badgers with a welded chain fence. No much else. Determined creatures of habit: they have a run through a hedge, past my hives, round our bird feeder (for odd nuts) and through another hole under our cast iron fence. I stopped them using another hole with a wooden railway sleeper.. ordinary mesh lasted about a week.

I just let them be and leave no comb around. The good news is they have killed every ground based wasp nest in and around our garden - ditto alas for bumblebees.

They've been using the same route for all the 30 odd years we have lived here.. the sett is very large and contains at least 20 active holes.

 

[IBeeHere]

They will also dig up wasp nests from the ground to eat the grubs, so wasps will be less of a problem for you.

 

[whoosling]

Thankyou all, will leave the bees to their brood box then, the answers for the badgers is reassuring as they've been in the garden longer than the bees and havn't caused us any hassle, our neighbours have just built another house in thier garden which seems to have altered the badgers run hense they now come through my bees, I am trying to be careful to be very clean and tidy so hopefully we'll all live in harmony.

 

[enrico]

One brood box is fine, loads of stores is fine, loads of bees is fine, badgers.....not so fine, but hey......a good wooden fence with wire netting buried to a foot deep will keep them out! You may not need it but they only need to be inquisitive once and your hive will be on its side! Then all your hard work will be for nothing!
They dug under my fence and ate all my carrots in one night! Hence the burying of the wire netting!
E

 

[whoosling]

They dug under my fence and ate all my carrots in one night! Hence the burying of the wire netting!
E

Yes I no longer grow carrots!!

Anyone know if the badger proof stands from f........ p are any good

 

[Arfermo]

My original hive is very full of bees, had a quick look when I took off the 2nd apiguard, bees all over all 11 frames, very little brood or stores hive very light so I am feeding. What I would like to know is should I put on a super to give them more room?, there were loads of bees outside the hive yesterday (but it was quite warm) or will they be ok now with just the brood box. Also I have a badger run going right through my 3 hives - no trouble yet - any ideas of how to deter the badges?

Feeding could be a mistake. There is ivy to come (round me it started to flower today and bees are going potty on that and sedum) which means they will be bunging up space that the queen might still lay in given the lovely weather that is in the offing for this week and that your Apiguard is now off which sometimes causes queens to get lazy/unethusiastic.

 

[drstitson]

whilst agreeing no point filling the brood space just yet (with ivy out anytime)

....if they have NO stores then some feed is necessary (a gallon of 2:1 equates roughly to 2 brood frames) to keep them alive.

no super needed - concentrate on letting them deal with the brood box without empty space above.