how to incourage bees to draw out foundation

[prana vallabha]

i have put a super on my hive , the bees are from a nuc and have a frame and half left to draw out in brood box ...

so i put a super on and wondered if there is a way of incouraging the bees to draw foundation out or just let them get on with it .....

 

[Tom Bick]

Pray for a flow and good weather

 

[oliver90owner]

Usual question: How many frames worth of brood is there?

Doubtful they need a super if there is still foundation to be drawn in the brood box.

Move those outermost frames adjacent to the brood nest to get them drawn first.

If a good flow, one frame can be placed within the broodnest.

Don't make them try to 'run before they can walk'. Bees don't follow instructions, however loud you might shout at them!

They won't draw comb unless they need it - well, I have never seen a super drawn and there being nothing put in any of it!

 

[prana vallabha]

7 frames of brood

 

[adrian wilford]

put one or two already drawn out frames in the middle of the super, if you have any, they will then go up much quicker, they seem reluctant to draw a new box full of foundation out

 

[itma]

i have put a super on my hive , the bees are from a nuc and have a frame and half left to draw out in brood box ...

so i put a super on and wondered if there is a way of incouraging the bees to draw foundation out or just let them get on with it .....

...
Doubtful they need a super if there is still foundation to be drawn in the brood box.

Move those outermost frames adjacent to the brood nest to get them drawn first.

... Bees don't follow instructions, however loud you might shout at them!

They won't draw comb unless they need it - well, I have never seen a super drawn and there being nothing put in any of it!

It *is* a real worry when you have *no* drawn shallow frames!


As noted, they won't draw comb unless they need it - and that can be a bit late.
Your lot certainly don't need a super just yet - they haven't even drawn out all the brood box frames yet.

But that gives you an opportunity to help your bees by making advance preparations.
You could remove the super for now - BUT - put a pair of shallow frames into the brood box (ideally one at each side of those with brood - the "brood nest") for a few days to get the comb drawn. Once they have made a good start to drawing those frames, you might even swap them for another pair for a few days of comb-drawing, before replacing the part-drawn deep frames.
But the time for such preparations is *before* the bees need the super because they are running out of space downstairs.


When the super is actually needed, having a couple of (even part) drawn frames to interleave with foundation should be a great help in getting them started "going up".
And for the first week with the super on, don't fit the Queen excluder. Only fit it once the bees have started to use the super - it might be quick with some drawn comb, but it can be terribly slow with the box just full of foundation.

 

[GiantswoodHoney]

I was told that a 2:1 sugar / water encourages the bees to make wax - not sure if true but it seemed to work for me. I only use brood box's and am on 6 box's now so I must have done something right!

 

[GiantswoodHoney]

Forgot to add that I started last year with a new queen and a few frames in a nuc.

 

[Rachelw]

put one or two already drawn out frames in the middle of the super, if you have any, they will then go up much quicker, they seem reluctant to draw a new box full of foundation out

Is it OK to use last years drawn foundation?

Rachel

 

[Poly Hive]

Sure is. It's an asset.

PH

 

[aberreef]

There won't be much in the way of blossom to forrage for a few weeks so feed with syrup to help boost the colony. I use 1:1 (1lbs sugar to 1 pint water)

 

[Poly Hive]

That rather sweeping statement: depends on locality surely?

I have a list as long as my arm either in bloom or coming on.

As I said earlier every unit I have has fresh feed in plus stores.

There is rather too keen an attitude to unnecessarily support Tate and Lyle.

It often does more harm than good and feeding to get supers drawn out is just plain bad beekeeping.

PH

 

[Finman]

.
Wait that colony grows: It does not stand beginner's encouragements!!!

If you do not know when to give more room, give it under the brood box. Bees occupye foundations when they are able to do that.

Feeding with sugar makes things worse. It restricts the brood area.


.

 

[Finman]

There won't be much in the way of blossom to forrage for a few weeks so feed with syrup to help boost the colony. I use 1:1 (1lbs sugar to 1 pint water)

Real rubbish! Just wrong advice. It is summer in UK too. Beess gather their own food from nature.

 

[oliver90owner]

As PH and Finman.

What is the point of feeding if they have stores already. Feed only if they need it. Your colony will expand only with bees, not sugar syrup. Allow as many bees to sevice the brood as possible - that way they will be able to service more brood which will eventually draw out comb if there is a flow. A hive of wax and sugar syrup and no new bees will not yield a honey crop. Autumn feed ready for the winter is the time for extra feeding, not now. Encourage brooding every time. For that they need pollen and nectar, ideally.

Think spring expansion - they use up stores to produce more bees, not make wax to store more sugar syrup. In that period they need extra water to dilute the honey back to a nectar type feed and all bees available to keep the expanding broodnest serviced and warm, but don't need extra feed unless they get short. Nothing really different now.

I might take stores out of a nuc to avoid moving them into a full hive, until the smaller box is as full of brood and bees as possible. It is a balancing act and nucs expand with bees, not extra stores. No different with a full sized hive.

 

[Finman]

.
When a small colony grows, the limiting factor is speed of brood cycle. It is 21 days what ever you do.
A colony has a capasity to nurse a certain amount of brood, and you cannot hemp them in that.

And what you can do as a beginner: to spoil the build up.
With wrong knowledge you can only do wrong conclusions.

Bees do not feel better if you feed them. They take their own food from nature.

 

[aberreef]

Sorry to join yet another argument BUT there is such a thing as a June gap (maybe bringing in a little but no major flow, at least in my locality). Also the weather has been pretty crappy over alot of the country for the past week or 2 and forecast to continue.

Last week I fed 2 litres to each of my nucs (transfered to full size BBs). One had already expanded to fill the BB so I added a super of foundation and the syrup which they haven't touched as yet despite little in the way of stores in the BB. The other has a few frames of foundation to draw in the BB and have taken all of their syrup. They've got little in the way of stores but have 1/2 drawn one of the frames.

To make wax bees need alot of nectar/honey/syrup. If there's none coming in then there's no harm in helping them out a little. I'm not advocating a full 30 odd lbs feed to fill the BB, just enough to tie them over. Bare in mind that, AFAIK, the op has given no details of forrage, weather conditions or stores. I may have missed it though.

 

[oliver90owner]

Sorry to join yet another argument

You are not 'joining it'. Your post precipitated the same views from the last three of us posting. We are all in agreement, but not with you.

You said: There won't be much in the way of blossom to forrage for a few weeks so feed with syrup to help boost the colony.

We are all saying ' don't feed 'willy nilly' because it will not help the colony expand. I thought I had shown (more than) enough reasoning to demonstrate that.
We said by all means feed if necessary (shortage of stores).

Anything else is likely counter-productive because with more bees they will catch up very quickly with comb production and then exceed any nectar collection rate simply because there would be enough bees there for the task. Any amount of comb is useless if there are insufficient (as in 'fewer') bees to collect any surplus. Think, bees need to be at around six weeks from the egg laying point before they become foragers. That cannot happen any faster.

Every time 'more bees is better'. I do hope those out there who are not sure can model the two differing points, because when they have, all will be clear. More bees wins, over more stored sugar syrup, every time.

 

[itma]

...
If you do not know when to give more room, give it under the brood box. Bees occupye foundations when they are able to do that.
...

I've occasionally come across this advice to 'nadir' another box (rather than 'supering' it) as being a better way of giving more space quickly - when no drawn comb is available.

Accepting it as sound advice, my rationalisation as to WHY it might work would be that comb would be drawn first at the top of the new frames, and if nadired that would be more or less continuous with the existing brood box comb - whereas, supered, there would be a significant discontinuity between the first new comb at the top of the frame and the pre-existing comb in the BB below. 'Jumping that gap' would be my suggestion as to why drawing new super comb can be such a hurdle.
Any other ideas as to why 'nadiring' would be more reliable?

/ PS - my mentions of initial nadiring have been waved away by "more experienced" beeks at my association, so I'd be pleased to see some more discussion of this! I had been wondering whether there was something important I might be either missing or imagining... !

 

[Finman]

Accepting it as sound advice, my rationalisation as to WHY it might work would be that comb would be drawn first at the top of the new frames, and if nadired that would be more or less continuous with the existing brood box comb -!

Question is not at all how fast they draw fo9undations. Question is how much bees cover at night when is the worst moment of day.

I have nursed bees 50 years, but I do not burst colony with sugar. It is nonsense.

When a swarm starts comb building in few first day, then I use sugar, but not so that it will ruin the quality of the yield.