How to encourage comb building

[Michael ECB's]

Looking for some serious advise and or guidance please.

I am trying to encourage comb building in 10 plus colonies.... (7 / 8 frames of bees in 10 frame Langstroth Deeps)
Honey harvest or value is of no concern, All i'm after is some well drawn comb using starter strips on Lang brood frames

How could I encourage this?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated...

 

[Murox]

A swarm will work like crazy to build comb for you. Bees only build/draw wax when they need the space for brood or stores - so I would suggest feeding them regardless of flow, with one to one sugar water. It helps but not essential, to keep the comb straight if you can place undrawn frames in between drawn ones.(just watch out they don't run out of room as you are feeding them). Once you've got 7/8 frames of BROOD you could put on a second deep and keep feeding til you have enough drawn wax. You could also manipulate the frames to your advantage, putting undrawn to the centre, moving some syrup filled frames up etc etc.

 

[Michael ECB's]

Thanks Murox, currently slotting empty frames in-between drawn out frames.... just going so slow... (I'm blessed with almost no patience at all)
Was going to start feeding sugar water as you recommend.... I still have about 200 kg's..
Any other tricks / silver bullet type of thing?

 

[Murox]

The only other thought I had was that if its just one hive you use for “wax production” you could consider giving it more sealed brood from another colony. Foragers are not as efficient at wax production as younger bees; maximum wax production is with 2 - 3 week old nurse bees.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I would suggest feeding them regardless of flow, with one to one sugar water.

Just remember that you will also end up with frames full of sugar 'honey' to extract as they will fill the newly drawn comb full of stores as they go

 

[Michael ECB's]

The only other thought I had was that if its just one hive you use for “wax production” you could consider giving it more sealed brood from another colony. Foragers are not as efficient at wax production as younger bees; maximum wax production is with 2 - 3 week old nurse bees.

No problem here, I have 10 strong colonies.... I count frames of bees to calculate... 7 to 8 frames on a 10 frame langstroth brood box full of bees... strong brood through at least 6 frames - both sides.... Good healthy girls....

 

[Michael ECB's]

Just remember that you will also end up with frames full of sugar 'honey' to extract as they will fill the newly drawn comb full of stores as they go

Hello again JBM... Sugar honey frames will be fed to removal colonies and trap outs.... Then put straight back into brood production frames for the same colony then later rotated up into supers... We only use lang brood frames here for supers..

 

[rolande]

Looking for some serious advise and or guidance please.

I am trying to encourage comb building in 10 plus colonies.... (7 / 8 frames of bees in 10 frame Langstroth Deeps)
Honey harvest or value is of no concern, All i'm after is some well drawn comb using starter strips on Lang brood frames

How could I encourage this?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated...

This isn't a tip which will be immediately helpful because you've just missed the boat but one of the best times to get really nice comb drawn is in the autumn on a feed. ITLD suggested this some years ago and we jumped straight on it and have never had cause to regret.

Edit:
It's almost three years to the day that I had a heated discussion about this, on this forum, with an old boy who couldn't get his head around a good idea. In the meantime I'm still getting lots of nicely drawn autumn comb....

 

[Michael ECB's]

This isn't a tip which will be immediately helpful because you've just missed the boat but one of the best times to get really nice comb drawn is in the autumn

Haven't missed the boat yet,,, heading into mid summer here in sunny South Africa.... Thanks for reply though.....
Just mixed up two batches....
1 x Golden syrup and 1 x plain cane sugar syrup...

 

[Apple]

Just remember that you will also end up with frames full of sugar 'honey' to extract as they will fill the newly drawn comb full of stores as they go

Trick is to put the box with the frames of "Sugar stores" under the brood above the entrance floor with a couple of 9mm laths.... so that it leaves a gap that the bees find difficult to defend... scratch the cappings.
Bees should move the stores up into the brood nest... I say should!!!!

Nadelik Lowen

 

[Finman]

First thing is to use thick foundations.
In my country one langstroth foundation weighs 100 g. Bees can draw cell wals to half way with extra wax of foundation. The weight on frame is same, but the wals have come up.

Second: give foundations then, when the colony is willing to draw combs: artificial swarm, during honey flow.

When the colony draws the combs, it uses 7-8 kg honey to make 1 kg wax. One langstroth box needs about one kilo new wax to make combs ready.

In selected conditions you can use sugar to get combs to be drawn: swarms and artificial swarms.

You can use your crystallized honey frames in comb making. Give 3 crystallized frames to the artificial swarm with queen, and the bees clean the frames and draw the foundations in a week.

Normally I do not encourage bees to draw combs. They do their job when they need combs.