No supers being drawn

[Batcher]

Hi everyone.
I am new here. This is my second beekeeping season and I have two hives a few hundred yards from lots of acres of Apples. Both hives are dong well. Bee inspector was happy with them and said that they did not need feeding.

The apples look as though they are in full blossom and I thought the supers would now be drawn out ready to store honey, and although a few bees are in the supers, they are still wandering around on just foundation. Am I doing anything wrong or do I need to be more patient?

Thanks in advance
Craig.

 

[enrico]

Patience is a virtue in this game, I am not too far from you in knighton so I know what forage is like, believe it or not apples don't give that much nectar, your bees are probably working the sycamore if you have any, when they need to build the supers up they will do, just sit back and enjoy for the moment! To get a good honey crop round here you need a major flow of some crop if possible. Lime, OSR, etc!
E

 

[BeeJayBee]

Am I doing anything wrong or do I need to be more patient?

Flowers need to be at the right temperature to produce nectar, and bees need to be at the right temperature to draw comb. If it's as cold where you are as it is here, then neither condition applies at the moment.

As enrico says, be patient and give them the time to do what they need to do.

One thing you might try is to check the brood box, and if there are several frames of stores you could 'bruise' one to encourage them to clean it out and move the honey up into the super. It would also give the queen more space to lay.

 

[charlievictorbravo]

Been there, seen that, got the t-shirt and thread

Have a look at a thread I started 3 weeks ago - lots of info on there: - http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=28801

Important stuff appears to be, have you got 8 frames of brood in the brood box?, if yes, try removing the QX for a few days. Move Super frames around to try to get them all drawn uniformly without honey stores being capped in central frames but not drawn on the outer frames.

Good luck - my bees are now drawing the first Super but being quite slow about it - not much osr around here (nearest is 1.6km away) so they're probably foraging on weeds and horse chestnut and some garden plants,trees and shrubs. I'm hopeful the Sycamore will give them a big boost and get them drawing the Super a bit quicker. I have a 14x12 frame in the Brood Box absolutely filled with honey so next time I go in there I intend to bruise the cappings and hope they use the opportunity to move the honey upstairs and in doing so, finish drawing the first Super.

CVB

 

[Batcher]

Thank you

Thanks all. Very good advice,
Craig