Encouraging bees to take honey from supers into brood box

[Erichalfbee]

The queen won't be laying in the winter much and yes the idea is that she should have unrestricted access to the brood and the super ... it's fine and not a problem. The queen will move with the cluster which will move to the warmest part of the hive (ie - the top) and if you left a QE in there the cluster may leave her trapped with a few bees below the QE or worse still stay with her and starve with stores above them. If she lays a bit in the super it's not a problem ... I run without queen excluders all the time and it's fine.

Do you know....I am doing that next year. All my boxes have too much honey in the broods....with capped and uncapped and empty supers above. In desperation last week I took out the queen excluders in two colonies and having run out of drawn supers I put foundation over the brood; drawn, filled and capped in three days

 

[Finman]

Exract the honey and sell it.
Feed bees with sugar over winter.

I have never even imagined so exremely difficult consepts what I reab now from forum. Madnes. Bees formulating drone cells in spring to rear its first brood.

What I can say is good heavens.

 

[Boston Bees]

... they will make the cells they want

I don't 100 percent agree with you here. This is comb built on drone foundation we are talking about here, not drone cells made on worker foundation. The cells are too large at the base to be easily refashioned to worker cells, at least in the middle of winter. I've seen bees try to build worker cells on drone foundation before and it was an unusable mess. Can post a pic if needed.

I would hesitate to overwinter a colony with the top box made up 100% of drone comb myself. Obviously the queen won't lay in it, but in cold weather she will want to be at the top of the box so it may inhibit their development. But maybe it would be fine.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

If nothing else - it serves to question the wisdom of using drone foundation in supers in the first place.

 

[thorn]

Me ...it was beaten into me at a grammar school in Yorkshire in the 1960's ... I'm chief Grammar Policeman ...

Scarred for life by the Use of English exam.

 

[Finman]

Obviously the queen won't lay in it, but in cold weather she will want to be at the top of the box so it may inhibit their development. But maybe it would be fine.

It is sure that queens lay in autumn and at the beginning of the year. So they valuable resources to drone reared. And the idea was... to save food value of £ 10 and spoil the whole hive.

But it is totally mad idea to put drone combs into the hive to be layed and believe that bees will turn them to worker cells.

If you feed the honey to bees, the honey has only the value of sugar. Perhaps £ 10.

How much it has idea to make any more harm by doing this and that. Forget to use honey any more as winter food. Do something next year.

You feed the brood box full with sugar syrup in September and that's it.

 

[user 819]

If nothing else - it serves to question the wisdom of using drone foundation in supers in the first place.

Unless your name is Roger !!!

 

[pargyle]

If I leave it on the hive for them as is for the winter, do I need to uncap or spray it or will the bees find a way to eat it. Don’t want to leave them this as their winter feed then find it was too hard for them to access it. I’m presuming they can manage it or they wouldn’t collect and store it in the first place?

No ... don't scratch it or uncap it or spray it if you are going to leave the super on over winter ..just remove the queen excluder in due course. I run 14 x 12 so what you are effectively creating by leaving the super on a standard national is a 14 x 12. They will just uncap and eat the honey in the same way they do in my 14 x 12's. As Patrick says if you scratch it they may take it down into the brood box too soon and block the space the queen needs to lay up your winter bees ... whatever you do - you need to leave it till quite a bit later in the season.. Leave it on and remove the QE or ..above an eke to take it down like a feeder.

The can manage OSR - mine overwinter mainly on Ivy honey which sets to something like Blackpool rock and they use it/

 

[pargyle]

Exract the honey and sell it.
Feed bees with sugar over winter.

I have never even imagined so exremely difficult consepts what I reab now from forum. Madnes. Bees formulating drone cells in spring to rear its first brood.

What I can say is good heavens.

It's Oil See Rape honey Finnie ... set in the combs.

 

[pargyle]

I don't 100 percent agree with you here. This is comb built on drone foundation we are talking about here, not drone cells made on worker foundation. The cells are too large at the base to be easily refashioned to worker cells, at least in the middle of winter. I've seen bees try to build worker cells on drone foundation before and it was an unusable mess. Can post a pic if needed.

I would hesitate to overwinter a colony with the top box made up 100% of drone comb myself. Obviously the queen won't lay in it, but in cold weather she will want to be at the top of the box so it may inhibit their development. But maybe it would be fine.

You see that's one of the benefits of being foundation free ,,, mine build whatever they want in the supers and I've seen them happily rejig what they have previously built to accommodate what they want at the time ... I've seen them strip wax right back to the central core of the comb when they are not happy with it ... I've also seen them build additional comb on top of what is there ... which can be a bit of a nuisance when it comes to extraction but .. I just cut it off and they start again.

I can see your point about thick foundation bases though ...

 

[pargyle]

Scarred for life by the Use of English exam.

Yes ... it's surprising how, nigh on sixty years on, you remember the rules of grammar ingrained in the back of my hand with a ruler ... it's its not its' ..... one wack for each ... and an extra one for not.

 

[Boston Bees]

I can see your point about thick foundation bases though ...

This useless moonscape is what I got when I, unthinkingly, put a sheet of drone foundation into four brood boxes after the longest day had already passed. One hive drew drone cells, the other three tried to make worker cells, but couldn't, as you can see, and gave up. Experiment rapidly abandoned and lesson learned.

 

[pargyle]

This useless moonscape is what I got when I, unthinkingly, put a sheet of drone foundation into four brood boxes after the longest day had already passed. One hive drew drone cells, the other three tried to make worker cells, but couldn't, as you can see, and gave up. Experiment rapidly abandoned and lesson learned.

View attachment 27595

What a shambles ... see what you mean.

 

[user 20297]

What a shambles ... see what you mean.

That's surprising; I thought bees could cope with anything!

 

[pargyle]

That's surprising; I thought bees could cope with anything!

Yes ... they can when they want but I suspect that in this case they either didn't need it or there was something easier to tackle when they were given that. I was once given some frames that were already fitted with foundation ... I tried everything to get the drawn out and nothing worked ... they would build comb anywhere but on that foundation... I gave up eventually - gave them some starter strips and away they went. No accounting for bees taste is there ?

 

[user 20297]

Yes ... they can when they want but I suspect that in this case they either didn't need it or there was something easier to tackle when they were given that. I was once given some frames that were already fitted with foundation ... I tried everything to get the drawn out and nothing worked ... they would build comb anywhere but on that foundation... I gave up eventually - gave them some starter strips and away they went. No accounting for bees taste is there ?

I think my bees' taste for drawing comb is similar to that of your bees. For an experimental change from starter strips I gave the bees half a sheet of foundation cut on the diagonal. They had multiple choices of what to make of it. You can see what their preferences were and those included a taste for a bit of drone comb in a BS. National, shallow box used above a deep but with no queen excluder.

 

[bees knees]

Thanks everyone. Think I opened a can of worms there! Fascinating discussion though and I’ve learned a lot.

So, based on all of the above, if you were me now would you -

A - risk putting the drone comb supers on without QE for the winter
B - feed the super honey to them via an eke and small hole in a crown board
C - throw away the honey and feed them sugar syrup instead
D - something else entirely

finman - this isn’t about saving money, it’s about not wasting the honey that’s been collected by putting it to good use - and also saving time and effort buying and making up syrup if it’s not needed - trying to kill 2 birds with one stone.

look forward to your voting!

 

[bees knees]

Unless your name is Roger !!!

I’m definitely thinking of switching to worker foundation for supers in future!
Although I also fancy trying without foundation having read this thread…

 

[pargyle]

A or B .... C & D are non-starters and if it's set in the comb you can't extract it to Finman's idea won't work.

Beekeeping is all about making decisions and personal choices ... you choose.

 

[user 819]

Simply give them the super with OSR on top with no QX, if they need it they will use it. Moisture will be got from with in the hive from condensation some where.