How do bees naturally arrange themselves?

[TryingToLetThemBee]

So a flow seems to be starting here, and I am meeting it with 60,000 bees in 4 National brood boxes.

That's the good news.

The bad news is that, following Demaree, the boxes are chaos with (by definition) two brood nests, with two brood-sized supers in-between. The bottom brood combs are darker. In terms of actual boxes, there are two poly boxes on top and two cedars below.

There are various amounts of stores and pollen in all four boxes and the Q is thought (not known) to be somewhere in one of the two brood boxes. I have reunited the Demaree by taking out the QE and crown board but not moved the boxes. So there are no obstructions.

Hoping for a decent flow, I now want to work with the bees, which will basically involve leaving them alone to sort out my mess, other than checking HM is indeed in residence.

I think I would expect them to try to place the brood nest in the upper two boxes, with the existing stores tending to be gathered around/above and incoming nectar being dried below. This obviously is different to what a QE/super arrangement forces. Is my expectation correct or will they tend to brood in the bottom box?

 

[Cazza]

Sorry but I have had a hard day, can't quite grasp the current set up?
Can you explain in thickymcthick terms?

i.e from top down
brood box
super
super???

If everyone else gets your set up, please forgive me

Cazzathickymcthick

 

[Erichalfbee]

So you have 4 BS Nat boxes in a stack?
I would go in there and consolidate the brood into the bottom box or two, find the queen,confine her there and put an excluder above her
Those boxes are going to be heavy............ full of honey!

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

Poly brood box. Some brood some stores. Light brood frames

Poly super(brood box size). Some stores and pollen. All comb drawn.

Same but cedar

Cedar brood box. Dark frames. No visible brood but probably has v young brood. Quite a lot of pollen. Some stores

OMF with no entrance block.

No QE etc

 

[Excession]

Not going to comment on your situation as I just don't know what's gone on!

Bees store honey above the brood nest.
They make comb from the top down.
And the brood nest moves down as the space above them fills up with honey.

I think this is what you are asking?! Sorry if it isn't!

 

[Finman]

.
No visible brood is the problem in the hive. Get a laying queen.

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

Not going to comment on your situation as I just don't know what's gone on!

Bees store honey above the brood nest.
They make comb from the top down.
And the brood nest moves down as the space above them fills up with honey.

I think this is what you are asking?! Sorry if it isn't!

Thanks Excession. I think that means they will choose the top brood nest initially.

.
No visible brood is the problem in the hive. Get a laying queen.

Finman; I took the brood upstairs in the Demaree a few days before inspecting and I forgot my reading glasses, so I may have missed eggs in a very crowded brood box so the hive is Q? rather than Q-. But yes I have a contingency plan. Thanks.

 

[Finman]

Finman; I took the brood upstairs in the Demaree a few days before inspecting and I forgot my reading glasses, so I may have missed eggs in a very crowded brood box so the hive is Q? rather than Q-. But yes I have a contingency plan. Thanks.

This goes outside the beekeeping science

 

[BILL.HEARD]

What I would probably do is to confine the queen in the newer set of brood combs on the floor and then a QE, next place the older BC above this and then the supers. Use the top BC as a super during the flow. I would probably melt down the combs in this top BC after extraction if they are extremely old.

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

This goes outside the beekeeping science

You are the guru of lots of boxes and no QE. My question's pretty simple; when you go to extract a hive like that after a flow, where is the brood nest?

 

[Finman]

.
Lowest box has pollen stores
Then brood. If the brood box has honey frames, lift them up and give empty combs

I kept hives 30 years so that I made the hive queenless for main yield. Then, when new queen started to lay, it took several weeks that the hives were organized as they ought to be.

Of course you may put the queen under excluder and onto empty combs, but results were not good late yield period.

You may run hives without excluder in early summer and grow bee masses. Towards late summer you use excluder that you get honey away in time.

 

[Teebeeaitch]

My head keeps spinning with all that info so I only have one suggestion. Maybe change that name to: NotTryingVeryHardToLetThemBee.

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

.

Lowest box has pollen stores

Then brood. If the brood box has honey frames, lift them up and give empty combs



I kept hives 30 years so that I made the hive queenless for main yield. Then, when new queen started to lay, it took several weeks that the hives were organized as they ought to be.



Of course you may put the queen under excluder and onto empty combs, but results were not good late yield period.



You may run hives without excluder in early summer and grow bee masses. Towards late summer you use excluder that you get honey away in time.

Thank you Finman. Very helpful.

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

My head keeps spinning with all that info so I only have one suggestion. Maybe change that name to: NotTryingVeryHardToLetThemBee.

I know , but I had swarm cells and now I am trying to work with them as I said. Bottom BB then QE does not do that IMHO.

<ADD>With all the recent talk about going QE-less, this is important information.</ADD>

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

On inspection yesterday she was laying well on dark frames (BILL.HEARD: they are all less than a year old) in the bottom box (of 4) with no QE. I like the idea of ENCOURAGING her, not confining her, to be there (or one box up) so the QE stays off for now.