Getting honey out of the brood box

[Angularity]

Most of my colonies seem content to put honey into the brood box, which is extremely irritating for me, regardless of how happy it makes the bees. I have been told to put an undrawn frame in the middle of the brood box, which presumably splits the brood and forces the bees to move the honey to give space for the queen to lay. Is this a good idea? If not, do you have any other ideas?

 

[BeeSpace]

Have they got space in a super they can move it into if they want to? If it's capped, you could take a frame or two out and freeze them, then store for making up nucs or supplementing in winter and replace with a frame of foundation either side of the brood nest. Will be interested to see other suggestions on this.

 

[Angularity]

There's plenty of super space. Short of sitting outside the hive reading from 'Beekeeping for Dummies' until they get the message, I'm running out of ideas. Especially as the OSR is coming to an end and I want to get it off.

 

[Poly Hive]

What hive are you running and how many frames of brood are there?

PH

 

[Angularity]

14x12, virtually no brood, just squeezed in here and there round the honey.

 

[Poly Hive]

Ok and what strain of bee are you using?

PH

 

[Angularity]

Buckfast

 

[Poly Hive]

Where are your excluders from as I have just had an interesting pm on FB.

PH

 

[Angularity]

Where are your excluders from as I have just had an interesting pm on FB.

PH

Caddon Hives. Do tell!

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Don't tell me they're bamboo!!

 

[Murox]

Most of my colonies seem content to put honey into the brood box, which is extremely irritating for me, regardless of how happy it makes the bees. I have been told to put an undrawn frame in the middle of the brood box, which presumably splits the brood and forces the bees to move the honey to give space for the queen to lay. Is this a good idea? If not, do you have any other ideas?

Are you using a queen excluder ? Bees can resist going through an excluder into the empty super unless it is "baited" by the beekeeper. Sometimes they just stuff nectar in the first empty cell they find as well, and when a good flow is on they really need drawn comb in the supers as they can bring nectar in faster than they build comb, so the brood box gets stuffed with nectar.

 

[Angularity]

Don't tell me they're bamboo!!

No, I'm too clumsy to rust anything that fragile. Or Chinese. Who knows what secrets it could be passing on?

 

[Poly Hive]

Seems there are some duff excluders set to the wrong width about.

PH

 

[Angularity]

Seems there are some duff excluders set to the wrong width about.

PH

Hmm. Any recommendations for replacements?

 

[Poly Hive]

It's not something I would buy from a small supplier personally.

Have you got or can borrow a micrometer? The width should be around 4.2 or 4.2 mm.

PH

 

[Angularity]

Thanks for your input. I have changed the QX and replaced some of the super frames with drawn comb robbed from elsewhere in my apiary. Hopefully this will make a difference. I can't measure the ones I've got.

 

[Poly Hive]

My contact said that out of ten hives fitted with the dodgy ones 8 were preparing to swarm as they were like yours totally honey bound which made my antennae twitch.

PH

 

[Gumbers]

There are definitely some under sized queen excluders being sold at the moment. I bought 10 from Simons & the bees will hardly go through them at all. They are yellow plastic ones, but different to the ones pictured on their website. I explained the problem to them & they happily took them back for a refund but I suspect they are still selling them. I bought replacements from Abelo based on the picture on their site but the ones that came were the same as the ones from Simons. The holes are nearer to 4mm than the 4.4 on my wire ones & the green plastic ones from Maise's. Damien at Abelo is looking into the issue for me..