How do I clear stores from a box?

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kermit

New Bee
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Jul 12, 2009
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Location
Oban, Argyll
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National
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We have re-united a colony that failed - lost new queen. Last weekend we put it on top of our other colony (with 2 supers) with newspaper in between. During the week we had a visit from the local bee inspector and she thought they were really doing well. There were quite a few frames almost fully capped in one super and the other was filling nicely.

Today we looked in with the hope of taking a few frames to spin off our first honey. However, there were no frames more than 3/4 capped. Additionally, some stores have been moved up to the deep box which is still sat on top.

How can we get the bees to remove the honey from the deep box and put it into the supers? Should it go above, below or where?

Cheers
Dave
 
Probably being thick here Dave but can you clearly explain what the set up actually is?


Seems you have united two hives. Seems you have supers some where? Plus a brood box on top of something?

Can you explicitly describe what the tower consists of so some advice can be given?

Thanks

PH
 
Probably being thick here Dave but can you clearly explain what the set up actually is?


Seems you have united two hives. Seems you have supers some where? Plus a brood box on top of something?

Can you explicitly describe what the tower consists of so some advice can be given?

Thanks

PH[/QUOTE

i assume it is starting from the top :-

failed brood box with honey in old comb, super, super, QX, queenright brood

so perhaps, remove the failed brood box and cut out the comb and feed it to them above the crown board
 
Muswell, you have got the situation spot on. However, I would rather not cut up the combs as some have only just been drawn out and the oldest are a year at most - we are still hoping to make increase this year even though our first attempt failed.

Cheers
Dave
 
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When the queen expands the laying, the bees clean the combs and move honey to the super.
 
Easy enough then Dave as you have things a bit back to front.

Bruise the cappings of the combs you want emptied.

Place that box on the floor and put your q+ Bb on top of it. Then excluder and then supers.

Bees will move the honey up to the supers and also give your queen more room to expand down.

I am off to do exactly the same this afternoon. Not because of a failure though, because a colony has decided one BB is enough and used the 2nd as a super. :)

PH
 
Do I need to put another queen excluder between the 2 brood boxes to stop the queen laying in the bottom brood box?

Cheers I will do this tonight or tomorrow.

Dave
 
Kermit,
You say you still hope to make an increase this year, if this is so re-arrange your colony as PH says so that it is essentially on double brood. Once you have brood in both boxes you will be in a good position to split the brood boxes and introduce a new queen to the queenless half - it is a bit late in the season to allow them to raise their own.

Regards Mike
 
MJBee

There are still a lot of queens that will be superceded this season, yet. No real difference. Just need a long season and some luck not to be uniting at the end of the season. Certainly a bought-in laying queen would be a better bet, but if the season drags on like last year there is every chance that a 'home-grown queen' colony could be big enough to over-winter. Big problem here is number of colonies to play with - no lattitude for mistakes and the over-wintering of (a) small stock(s) by a relatively new beek......

Regards, RAB
 
However, there were no frames more than 3/4 capped.
How can we get the bees to remove the honey from the deep box and put it into the supers? Should it go above, below or where?

Now I read closer. The problem is actually that you want to spin --- soon.

Makes no sence if you start to play for that reason.

Let the colony grow in peace. When you add the third box, then lift all honey frames over the exluder and let the bees fill and capp the cells.

2 box hive at this time summer is a small hive. Let it grow and don't try to split it.

Here in cold Finland I have now 4-6 boxes. More is needed.

Actually 2-box hive is not able to gather honey to be extracted. You get the extractor only dirty if you do that.

.

.
 
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If the deep brood box with stores contains no brood, take it off, shake the majority of bees of it into your "real" brood box, put a crown board on top of everything, leave the feed hole open (maybe restrict it a bit), put an empty super (no frames) on top of that, then the brood box with the stores that you want removing. They should then rob stores out of the frames in the top brood box, realising that it is too far away from the nest to be of use in winter. This has worked for me before - just depends on whether your bees agree or not!
 
Moving cost of honey

How much it cost to rob own honey?

When bees store the winter syrup, the storing and caping takes 25% of sugar.

So when you put bees to rob its own honey, it surely takes the same amount of energy. In open robbing bees flye here and there when they work with the honey and the loss will be very big.

But if you leave the honey into frames, it is there and bees fill the cells and no losses will occur.

The price which you must pay for early extarcting is huge. Part of honey will only greace uncapping tray, extractor and the sieve. - Bad business.
 
He asked the question "
How can we get the bees to remove the honey from the deep box and put it into the supers? Should it go above, below or where?".

Apologies for answering this in such an obvious way - I now realise I should have asked him if he knew what he was asking, and then thought up an extremely complicated answer which would ultimately confuse and most importantly not answer the initial question. I think I'm getting the hang of this forum thing now! I'll try harder next time and study a few more posts to get the format right. :)

....but Finman.....what you say is right....extracting small amounts, or early is folly.
 
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Yes, there was actually many questions and for what purpose?

in this situation he should only wait that bees arrange brood and in natural way .

It is not a big loss if he takes one frame and eate the honey with spoon.

The brood area will enlarge and bees move the honey naturally to upper box. It takes week or two. It depends how good layer is the queen and how much they have nurser bees.

Usually beekeepers disturbs colony life with trying them force to draw new foundations. It is better to learn, how bees act in natural way. That is beekeeping.
 
Thanks for all the comments. In the end I put the brood box under the existing colony and they moved most of the stores up in just a week. Lucky I did this, as I have just done an artificial swarm after finding some queen cells. Hopefully we will get the increase we want.

Finman - best comment of all - It is not a big loss if he takes one frame and eate the honey with spoon.

My wife has been wanting the honey, so here's my answer to her.

Cheers
Dave
 

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