brianmc
New Bee
Hi all,
A two hive owner here looking to learn.
2 colonies each in single national brood boxes.
Both were very small coming out of the winter but are accelerating.
The (slightly) stronger of the two has roughly 6 frames of bees with 5 frames of brood. Last week, on inspection I found a few cups, two with eggs. I broke them down. There were still some frames of winter stores and these may have been restricting space, so I rearranged some frames to put a couple of frames of drawn empty comb beside the brood.
Yesterday, there were 8 or 9 cups, some with eggs, some drawn down a little and one queen cell fully charged and almost sealed.
Obviously I don't want this small colony to swarm, artificially or otherwise. Is is too late?
My plan today (open to advice) is to add another brood box below the first. It will be mainly foundation. I have one other drawn, empty frame I can use. Is this futile? Do I need to do some sort of swarm control at this point?
And, now for my crazy newbie idea... What if, I put the box of foundation below the existing box... but, into the bottom box I could place a frame of brood with the queen on it and two of the empty drawn frames? The rest filled with foundation. With the queen in the bottom, I could place a queen excluder in between. Almost a demaree but without the separation of any supers between the two boxes.
My hope is to simply turn them off swarming because the queen will clearly have plenty of room.
Additional notes... she has slowed down laying in the last week (presumably for swarming) and she appears to have been slimmed down a bit.
There is a chance that supersedure is their aim. There are a few (only a few) randomly placed drone among the brood, but otherwise she has been laying well. I am considering changing the queen later in the summer, either because she's too swarmy or because of the random drones.
Thanks for any help or opinions.
A two hive owner here looking to learn.
2 colonies each in single national brood boxes.
Both were very small coming out of the winter but are accelerating.
The (slightly) stronger of the two has roughly 6 frames of bees with 5 frames of brood. Last week, on inspection I found a few cups, two with eggs. I broke them down. There were still some frames of winter stores and these may have been restricting space, so I rearranged some frames to put a couple of frames of drawn empty comb beside the brood.
Yesterday, there were 8 or 9 cups, some with eggs, some drawn down a little and one queen cell fully charged and almost sealed.
Obviously I don't want this small colony to swarm, artificially or otherwise. Is is too late?
My plan today (open to advice) is to add another brood box below the first. It will be mainly foundation. I have one other drawn, empty frame I can use. Is this futile? Do I need to do some sort of swarm control at this point?
And, now for my crazy newbie idea... What if, I put the box of foundation below the existing box... but, into the bottom box I could place a frame of brood with the queen on it and two of the empty drawn frames? The rest filled with foundation. With the queen in the bottom, I could place a queen excluder in between. Almost a demaree but without the separation of any supers between the two boxes.
My hope is to simply turn them off swarming because the queen will clearly have plenty of room.
Additional notes... she has slowed down laying in the last week (presumably for swarming) and she appears to have been slimmed down a bit.
There is a chance that supersedure is their aim. There are a few (only a few) randomly placed drone among the brood, but otherwise she has been laying well. I am considering changing the queen later in the summer, either because she's too swarmy or because of the random drones.
Thanks for any help or opinions.
