Maintaining brood chambers.

[johnfranklyn]

I have kept bee's for a few years now but still am not sure if I am replace old frames that are past their best in my brood chambers correctly.

Would some member with more experience please describe a system I should follow to keep my brood chambers up to scratch? At the moment its rather hit and miss for me.

Thanks in advance,
johnfranklyn

P.S. I recently tried out exterior feeders that I made that hang outside the front of the hive over a small entry slot. I was advised they may promote robbing on the forum and found the advise was correct. Only when I attached feeders to all my hives did this system start to work. Having only to lift the lid to pour in the syrup was so quick for my advanced age (81), so I intend to try it again early next year.

 

[Outlander]

Im sure you will get plenty of good advice from here. im very new so will leave it for others. 81 and still tending your bees, that's so cool. I hope I can say the same when im 81. At very nearly 50, 80 does not seem that far away. Happy beekeeping

 

[Teemore]

When my father or I wax frames, we write the year on the top bar- it generally remains visible after the bees apply propolis or can be uncovered by judicious scraping. You can then decide which frames to remove in terms of the date displayed.
Another way to date your frames would be to use some of the coloured plastic frame spacers - use colours in line with the queen marking colours.
I started out with the intention of replacing at least a third of the frames in my colonies annually but find that in practice a much higher amount is cycled out through the production of nucs as part of my swarm diversion measures, creating nucs for increase, replacing poorly drawn, damaged or holed frames of comb or the donation of test frames.

 

[george]

If you are replacing some then its probably better than none at all , so dont beat yourself up .
I , like Teemore date mine with the yr they were waxed then update when boiled clean and rewaxed . A sharpie type pen works well .
As to how . If its a change just based on age at 3 yrs old they come out , If I have any that have been misshapened , usually because of drone brood I am a bit ruthless and pull them out .
Its tricky for the first few yrs as you feel like you are removing either too many or too few . I would just take out those that are not drawn straight and true .
I find a good time to change a few late season is when I feed . They draw them out well .
Or go mad in Spring next yr and shook swarm them?

Hope thats of some help .
G

 

[jackbee]

Another way to date your frames would be to use some of the coloured plastic frame spacers - use colours in line with the queen marking colours.

I'm marking mine in line with Queen year colours so frames in this year - yellow dot from pen

 

[Tdf]

i use double brood, top box has all good frames at start of year swap boxes round and put queen excluder in, after extracting any bad frames are melted down (i overwinter on one box)