Nadiring

[Beedogg]

I had a BB of mostly capped honey above the QX (a legacy of a Demaree that had got slightly out of control) which I took off and spun-out 5 days ago. Rather than store the DN frames wet, I popped the old BB under the main BB (the one with the brood in) in the expectation that the bees would clean it up and move any residue honey up into the super. So the structure was BB (wet); BB; QX; super.

I went into today expecting to take off the cleaned BB only to find that the bees have almost re-filled it! Little of it is yet capped but I anticipate that they will do that in the next few days. There is a strong ivy flow on at present.

So, they seem to have stored fresh stores below the brood in preference to a largely empty super above it. Is this common?

 

[enrico]

I had a BB of mostly capped honey above the QX (a legacy of a Demaree that had got slightly out of control) which I took off and spun-out 5 days ago. Rather than store the DN frames wet, I popped the old BB under the main BB (the one with the brood in) in the expectation that the bees would clean it up and move any residue honey up into the super. So the structure was BB (wet); BB; QX; super.

I went into today expecting to take off the cleaned BB only to find that the bees have almost re-filled it! Little of it is yet capped but I anticipate that they will do that in the next few days. There is a strong ivy flow on at present.

So, they seem to have stored fresh stores below the brood in preference to a largely empty super above it. Is this common?

They can't put it where the brood is but they will move it round as the brood emerges

 

[Beedogg]

But why not into the empty drawn super which is above the BB? That's the bit that surprises me.

 

[enrico]

Because there is a QE between the super and the BB possibly.

 

[Swarm]

But why not into the empty drawn super which is above the BB? That's the bit that surprises me.

If you have a substantial flow, they will simply dump the nectar in the first available cells.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Exactly. That’s why you often see a brood box stuffed with nectar when you inspect during a strong flow. The bees move it up overnight.

 

[Beedogg]

OK thanks. Well I guess I leave them to it for few days and see what they do. If it's capped I'll take it off.

 

[user 20297]

But why not into the empty drawn super which is above the BB? That's the bit that surprises me

The brood nest will have been shrinking and the bees will have been gradually filling the outer rows of brooded cells with stores as new bees emerge. In other words, recently, they will have been storing under existing honey rather than above, as they were doing in the Summer. The upper face of those stores may be consolidated with additional wax in the spaces between frames as is seen when honey supers are really full.

The bees may now consider that layer to be the limit of their winter nest, but the stores in the nadired box may still end up in the main brood box.