second floor not active

[shushahar]

Hello all!
My question is -
Its late spring already and about 2 weeks ago I added a second floor to one hive, with a special net between the floors that keeps the queen only in the lower one. In the upper floor i have put 9 frames with new wax sheets. after 2 weeks the bees did nothing on the second floor, only working on the first.
What am i doing wrong or not doing?

Thanks allot for an answer.

 

[oliver90owner]

Hello and welcome.

If your weather is anything like ours at this present time, it is not surprising.

Too cold
Insufficient forage
Insufficient bees
faulty queen exclude ('net')

Could be any and possibly others. Hope that helps. More information required for a longe range diagnosis would help.

Regards, RAB

 

[drex]

As O9O says above, it depends on what your weather is like in Israel.
I assume the "special net" is a queen excluder, with holes in it that will allow workers through but not the queen.

They will not use the top box until they need to. With it being cold here we would not add one until it is needed. I would generally not add on the top box ("super") until the bottom box had 6-8 frames of brood, depending on circumstances.

They can be encouraged in to the top box by leaving off the queen excluder for a week or so. When they are using it, you can then check to make sure the queen is in bottom box, and put on the excluder. Spraying the wax in the top box with a light sugar syrup is also said to encourage them up.

As said above, we really need more info

 

[FreeFall]

It would depend on where in Israel the OP is. Eilat is a "bees all over the entrance" 25°, while Jerusalem is a "hmm.. should I open them up or not" 15°