Making space quandry

[Brigsy]

Hello all,

I'm back with my never ending beginners questions. Last couple of years I have ended up in Spring with too many frames with stores left from Autumn feeding. I have removed a couple of solid frames, bruised the nearest the nest and replaced with foundation or drawn comb.

This year, two weeks ago when it was warm, I opened up and found stores bound as per usual, so bruised a couple of frames of stores in each and planned to open up last weekend to see how they got on and replace with foundation to make space if needed.

Now it was too cold, and this week is looking at 11-13 degrees all week. I have that sense of foreboding and need to do something but the weather prevents.

I was holding off adding supers as I don't want honey full of invert.

I suppose I could add supers for the time being and just spin them out and discard and start again when the brood area is under control.

Or sit on my hands and hope.....

Any thoughts please.....what to do for the best?

Thanks

 

[For want of a better word]

Put a super with undrawn foundation on top... no queen excluder,
Bees will draw out the wax and possibly the q will lay up there too.... will give them some room.... doubtful if they would move already capped stores into the super?

Chons da

 

[Brigsy]

Hi, cheers. I was under the impression that they would move it away from the brood nest. Maybe that is one of the things beekeepers argue about haha......I think you are probably right with the required action either way.

 

[enrico]

Whereas I would put the box underneath with no qe. That way they don't have to move the food, just let the queen lay underneath!
E

 

[Brigsy]

Hi,

As it happens I have a nadired super that was virtually empty under the busiest colony so maybe that will keep them quiet for the week, fingers crossed. Was going to remove it last weekend but was too cold.

Is the thinking that that gives them space and time for me to sort them out properly when the temperatures rise?

 

[enrico]

If the brood box is chocker with food then the queen will lay in the super underneath. How you want to sort it from thereon is down to you. Lots of alternatives.
E

 

[Brigsy]

Many thanks.

Sent from my SM-G965F using Tapatalk

 

[Show me the honey]

So next autumns plan has to be not to feed so much

 

[Brigsy]

Very true. It's scary though.

 

[Show me the honey]

Very true. It's scary though.

Ye I understand that and felt the same the first year. Till I realised that providing the weather is good they get enough from Ivey. I mainly feed to get some thymol into the the hive. Hefting a hive is good idea or you can wiegh them

 

[philipm]

So next autumns plan has to be not to feed so much

It's better to feed them too much than they run out halfway through the winter.
The bees will keep taking feed until they decide that they have enough.I'd soon sort out full store frames than a dead hive due to starvation.

 

[Beefriendly]

So next autumns plan has to be not to feed so much

Not a good idea, some hives will continue brooding and munch their way through stores, others will be frugal.
Difficult to judge which hives will do what before they do it!.
As Phillipm says, better to overfeed and remove full frames of stores in spring.
Currently have taken out 2 brood boxes worth of brood frames stuffed with stores this season.
These will be used to provide stores for nuc's later this season.

 

[For want of a better word]

It's better to feed them too much than they run out halfway through the winter.
The bees will keep taking feed until they decide that they have enough.I'd soon sort out full store frames than a dead hive due to starvation.

Been seeing on here posts all winter long about hefting and feeding fondant when the beekeeper has been a tad tight with the Autumn feed!!!

In the Spring as the first nectar flows come on..... replace the capped store brood frames with new undrawn brood foundation.

We use the caped brood frames*... which will have the Autumn thymolated feed in them to help build up the early splits into nucs.... once the new queen has started laying up the frames...and once there are enough bees to clear them!
* run the hive tool over the surface to remove some of the capping as sometimes the bees will just ignore it!

Drawn brood foundation is worth its weight in gold!!


Chons da

 

[Show me the honey]

It's better to feed them too much than they run out halfway through the winter.
The bees will keep taking feed until they decide that they have enough.I'd soon sort out full store frames than a dead hive due to starvation.

Yes good point

 

[Ian123]

Cheers is spot on don’t be afraid of putting the feed on you also don’t want to swamp them it’s a bit of a balancing act. Problem that many have is they pile it in and think the jobs done, realistically now with milder autumns is often bees will use up a percentage on brood rearing long before the winter really kicks in. I have no problems feeding into late sept even nov

 

[Brigsy]

Thanks all, it's been a consistent theme of having to remove stores in Spring, but this year they barely touched the stores. I worked out what they had in weight already prior to feeding and added the amount up to make 20kgs a hive. (The thinking being that bees need 40-45 lbs of stores for the winter)

I haven't used fondant and they each have 5 frames of stores left. Commercial brood frames that is.

I would rather have stores left than starved bees that's for sure. Maybe in Poly they don't need to use so much energy staying warm.

Thanks all for the advice, I think this cold week will have them eat up some more.

It's worked fine for me before, but just trying to time the frame swapping when it's too cold had me scratching my head for the best course of action.