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[peacoops]

Hi
Further to your advice in the autumn to nadir a super from a strong colony to my weaker one, I now have two apparently happy strong colonys, the problem is there is brood in the nadired super - is it ok to move it above the queen excluder (ensuring the queen isn't on it) so that i do end up with just the brood box under the excluder - ie will the brood hatch and do its thing and then leave space for honey stores?
Sorry to be a nuisance newbee, and thanks in advance for any suggestions

 

[JWF]

The brood will hatch fine, but be mindful that once you put the queen excluder on the queen will only be able to lay in the brood box, so make sure there is enough room in there for her to lay. If you have several BB frames which are full of stores you can scratch the capping a little which should encourage the bees to move the honey up into the super, making more room in the BB for the queen to lay.

 

[pargyle]

As above - the brood will emerge and hopefully they will move stores up ... if they don't then take a frame of stores out of the brood box (or two if there is an arc of honey above the brood) and store them for future use and give them a couple of fresh frames to draw out. This will encourage the queen to lay as they do like fresh comb to lay in.

One of the issues I have with standard national boxes is that a prolific queen may run out of space to lay and they will then start to make swarm cells - be prepared if thsy are running away to go to brood and a half (Yuk ... hateful combination) or double brood.

 

[masterBK]

Interestingly honey extracted from combs that previously held brood is slightly darker in colour than from comb that has never held brood.

 

[Swarm]

If you bruise any stores frames in order for the bees to clear them, make sure they contain honey and not sugar.

 

[enrico]

Any drones will get trapped above queen excluder but apart from that, and room, I often do what you suggest.
E

 

[peacoops]

Ok thanks that's Tuesdays job sorted then