Rolling Demaree....

[JonnyPicklechin]

Bees are quickly back filling empty brood combs with honey. If I put these down below with the queen during the "roll" will they take the honey upstairs and will they be more likely to target the 'mid floor' supers if the top brood is now again fitted with new brood frames post-roll?

I dont necessarily mind if the top frames become honey supers as I can spin them but the action does make for a less effective rolling mechanism.

Ive not yet added a third super above the top BB, but imagine this will help?

 

[Cuckmere couple]

Hi JP

my demaree threads in beginners are asking similar questions

yesterday i moved frames down in a number of demareed hives and they had been backfilled with nectar...Dani and others agree it will get moved but i checked there was drawn comb x3 to lay in too...

i also put a top super on, thinking that they have been storing nectar in the UBB brood frames, so there are clearly enough flying up there to bring stores in, and now the UBB is full of brood from below again, the only place left for them now is the super above, which i hope accelerates them up to the top super

 

[user 819]

Placing any stores back below in the BB containing the Q defeats the idea of giving extra space, is the current RD on a single or double BB set up ? If a single then place her on double brood and leave the RD for now. They will back fill as to them it is a just a larger storage area.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Placing any stores back below in the BB containing the Q defeats the idea of giving extra space,

Not really - done it often in a rolling Demarree - you're in the top box often enough to ensure that the honey in the frames won't be ripe or on the point of capping - if moved into the bottom brood box they soon shift the stores 'upstairs' to give the queen plenty of laying space.

 

[Cuckmere couple]

i ended up with a combination

some frames moved down may have had 10-40% uncapped nectar, nothings an exact science, so left these hoping it would be moved for more space, but ensured at least 3 frames in each of drawn comb, though wondered if these would also get filled up, though the bees in LBB were using the supers

was more bothered about a few lines of capped brood on outer edges of 4-5 frames and not much else on these frames, spread across the LBB

wondered if the bees would see that as a right old mess of a nest and blame the Q!

 

[Finman]

What I roll is, that if frames and boxes have much nectar, I lift them upp and empty frames I put between brood and honey.
If broof box has much honey frames, I lift them up.

If you get one box honey, you need two boxes where the bees dry up the nectar.
The bees have instinct to lift rippen honey topmost.

I do not understand what else rolling could be.