No room in brood box

[Midgey]

I'm using a 14x12 brood box and the bees are filling it with nectar and pollen and leaving almost no room for any brood. I have put a super on with drawn comb to give them more room but they are ignoring it. I'm worried that there is so little room for brood that the colony will soon be depleting in numbers rather than growing. Any ideas how I can encourage the bees to use the super and move the nectar from the brood box?

 

[Finman]

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It seems that colony is so small that it cannot occupye second box.
One box is enough, and it uses it.

How much you have ventilation in the hive?
How many frames brood if you count them together?
Are there white larvae?

 

[itma]

I'm using a 14x12 brood box and the bees are filling it with nectar and pollen and leaving almost no room for any brood. I have put a super on with drawn comb to give them more room but they are ignoring it. I'm worried that there is so little room for brood that the colony will soon be depleting in numbers rather than growing. Any ideas how I can encourage the bees to use the super and move the nectar from the brood box?

Remove the all-stores frames - just leave one. Scratch the cappings a bit with your hive tool on the one you are leaving.
Give them one frame of foundation - place it between the last brood frame and the remaining stores frame.
Move the frames tight to one side of the box, and put a dummy board at the end of the frames.
You could do a sanity check on your QX hole size - wants to be about 4.5mm.
You might smear some honey onto the bars of your drawn super - or shake some nectar from some of your 'brood' frames over that box's topbars -- something to encourage/reward bees going up there.
Make sure the coverboard hole is closed. Put insulation above the coverboard (under the roof). The new box is likely to be cold (and thus unwelcoming) until it gets a lot of bees up there. (Advantage to poly!)


Other threads have discussed what you might do with the removed stores frames. I'd impress upon you not to add more than one frame of foundation at a time, but to add another once the first is nearly all drawn.

 

[thenovice]

I find removing the QX altogether to help a lot. put it back in when bees are using it. Make sure your queen is down of course.

 

[MikeT]

I have the same problem with one of my hives. The bees will not go up into the super. Tomorrow I am going to remove the wire QE, add some more insulation and possibly remove a couple of store frames from the BB and replace with new foundation.

 

[Midgey]

Finman - there was about 5 frames of brood a couple of weeks ago but that is dwindling because there is no space. I have an OMF so ventilation is OK and yes there are white larvae. I put the super on because I am surrounded on 3 sides with OSR which is in full flower. I'll have a look later today to see if things have changed.

 

[Midgey]

Thanks - I'll try putting some insulation above the super to see if that encourages them to use it

 

[Hawklord]

You have 5 frames of brood, are the other 6 frames full of stores? If that's the case I'm surprised they are not making swarm preparations. Can you extract the frames?

 

[Finman]

Finman - there was about 5 frames of brood a couple of weeks ago but that is dwindling because there is no space. I have an OMF so ventilation is OK and yes there are white larvae. I put the super on because I am surrounded on 3 sides with OSR which is in full flower. I'll have a look later today to see if things have changed.

That is very usual in the middle of rape fields. Hive will be stucked in few days. Bees use to swarm in this situation without any warning.

Only solution is now that you take honey franes off, and give foundations to be drawn. Leave on food frame next to brood.

Close mesh floor, that hive is warmer. 5 brood frames is good amount.

Keep honey frames in warm. Perhaps they crystallize but it is not a big problem compared to recent problem.