One or two BB for development

[Nordicul]

Hi All
I’m newbie with two standard hives
They are from two overwintered nucs 11th May.

One hive has grown well always a lot of activity, the other in comparisson more poorly which I’ve attributed to a degree of chalk brood .
To develop both I’ve been feeding them.

With the good hive I’ve put some of the undrawn bb frames into a bb above without Q ex.
Last inspect Q was up there along with brood and they were activly drawing out the frames.

My priority is to build up both colonies, not honey, though of course that would bee great.’

Questions:

A.Would I be best to let them work away on the upper BB without interference ?or
B.Interfere a bit by moving some of upper drawn out frames with brood back below until bottom BB is filled ,then when upper filling up add the supers?

C.How hard is it for a newbie to work a two BB config?

C1. If I were to return to a oneBB set up how late on could I do it .?

D. I presumed it would be better for a newbie to have drawn out BB comb than super if development is my aim and twards helping weaker hive?

Any other thoughts camments welcome, next inspect on Monday
Tia

 

[Nordicul]

Ooops , they are National hives in case this makes any difference.

 

[drex]

" let the bees tell you" was a saying attributed to Brother Adam. I would not feed at all in summer, assuming there is plenty of forage about. Without feeding, and without intervention they can easily fill half the brood frames in a box with honey, hence cutting down the room the queen has to lay. I would allow her to fill up the available space in first Bb before adding a second. They might either use it as a honey store or she may start to lay in it. Depends on how productive queen is and how busy the foragers are. At the end of the season I might then rearrange the frames, possibly back down to one box, and having not fed would have a few frames of honey to extract. Be guided by your bees. Do not try to push them too hard in the direction you want, but let them lead the way.
It is no harder to work a double rather than single brood, just involves a bit more lifting.
Using undrawn deep foundation, even if they use it to store honey, is a good way to build up your collection of drawn comb, which is always valuable, but drawn out shallows are valuable too.
When we inspect and take out brood frames we tend to think of the brood nest in 2 dimensions only. Remember it is 3 dimensional and shaped like a rugby ball, but hopefully bigger.

 

[Nordicul]

Hi Drex,

Thanks for your calming reply, and the quote from brother Adam.

"Let the bees tell you"

I'm sure they are telling me and it's just my ignorance in reading them, I know I have much to learn and I can see it's a steep learning curve , one in which one will never know everything about them.

Like all novices I'm keen and probably too hasty and in the absence of experience and in being unable to read the bees, I'm listening to others,....I begin to understand now the joke about asking five beekeepers a question and getting six answers!

Another quote that comes to mind is from the Medics Hippocratic oath .."First do no harm" so I'll take on board it and your comments. I'll also try to be less pushy cutting back a bit on my desire to manipulate the bees into going my way and try a bit more following.

Again thanks and like your own quote "One day I might get the hang of this" I could add if I live long enough!

 

[Levitt53]

I did this one and they filled the top box with honey. I couldn’t lift the damn thing to inspect them so ended up leaving them over wintering like that. It was a bit later in the season I think. Come spring it was still mostly full of honey and I had to take quite a few out and eventually split them to stop them doing it again.

 

[enrico]

If that happens just remove a couple of capped frames and replace with new ones, drawn comb never goes amiss.

 

[Beefriendly]

Just inspected one of my double brood hives where I'm waiting for an exvirgin queen to kick in. Could hardly lift the top box and the bottom was in the nearly the same state.
Three frames in the middle with polished cells......
This going to be a good honey summer....

 

[colinc]

Just inspected one of my double brood hives where I'm waiting for an exvirgin queen to kick in. Could hardly lift the top box and the bottom was in the nearly the same state.

Three frames in the middle with polished cells......

This going to be a good honey summer....

I hope so. Unlike everyone else my spring wasn’t great. Will adjust my overwintering plan this year. The bees all survived but only just really getting going now.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[Beefriendly]

I hope so. Unlike everyone else my spring wasn’t great.

Ditto, was down nearly half of the honey I took the previous spring. The long cold wet late spring delayed colony development so they weren't able to take full advantage on the OSR.

Not sure what they are finding at the moment (although soem field beans just coming into flower) but they are piling it in....probably too fast hence all the brood frames getting filled....as are the supers.