To add a super or not

[Finman]

I put a super on of foundation to try to get them to store there, however I wonder if I have separated the brood too far from the stores.
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To save those wild combs and bees work it is, like say, good to put combs in wired frame. That is agood job.

 

[Haughton Honey]

. YOu duty is to follow weekly what bees do. So you learn what they do and what is happening in the hive. Next year you have some idea, what is happening and what you perhaps should do.

.......and that, ladies and gentlemen, is a very succinct point which pretty much sumises what it's all about

 

[jackbee]

Uh huh.

All good until you drive fifty miles to retrieve the cleared supers and find two drones stuck in your perfect porter escape and a lot of very annoyed bees trapped behind them.

A QX tween brood and super would prevent that , wouldn't it?

Or were they trying to get into the super, ah, but same solution!

 

[BeeJayBee]

T*****s Bees on a Budget flat roof & not pitched. Its about a 4 inch gap from feeder board to underside of roof.

There shouldn't be anything like that much space directly beneath the roof. It should overhang the sides of the hive by about 4 inches, to make it draught and rain proof.

It sounds as if your roof is sitting directly on the outer edges of your crown/feeder board.

 

[alanf]

T*****s Bees on a Budget flat roof & not pitched. Its about a 4 inch gap from feeder board to underside of roof.

Is it assembled correctly? The roof is 4 inches (100mm) deep at the side, but most of that is a 'skirt' that covers some of the topmost box and crown board to deflect rain. The roof has battens nailed inside but they lift it only 1 inch or so off the crown board to provide a ventilation gap.

Some bees just like building wild comb in any gap they have access to. They would rather do that than draw your foundation. If it's just one box they are reluctant to draw it could be the wax. Not unknown for some wax batches to have contaminents that mean the bees reject them.

I've had wild comb that I've framed with royal mail rubber bands. The bonus is that the enthusiastic comb maker bees extended it to the full width and I've carried on using it as a normal frame.