Undrawn foundation - what to do?

[BeeFlop]

HI All

i was wondering if i could ask for some advice from the forum please

Essentially i got a 14-12 nucleus at the end of july having lost my 1 colony over last winter. I moved them into full brood box mid august hoping that they would draw it all out. At present they have 6 drawn out frames and 5 undrawn - now starting to have mild panic!

I would be very grateful if anyone could offer some advice on how to go forward from here to get this colony through winter. I have a few thoughts at present:

1. Hold my nerve and see if they draw more out in coming weeks and try a couple of feeds, although have already done this and didnt seem to do much + got some serious wasp action once i had put a feed into hive.

2. I have some drawn out national frames from my last hive - i could put these into the hive to give them space to make stores for winter, although will be too short.

3. move them back into the nucleus for winter?

4. continue to panic and not really achieve anything!

Many thanks for any advice!

 

[Oscarmonster]

Moving them back into the nuc sounds like your best plan.
You can then spend the winter reading up in the archives about how best to build them up in the spring.

 

[pargyle]

HI All

i was wondering if i could ask for some advice from the forum please

Essentially i got a 14-12 nucleus at the end of july having lost my 1 colony over last winter. I moved them into full brood box mid august hoping that they would draw it all out. At present they have 6 drawn out frames and 5 undrawn - now starting to have mild panic!

I would be very grateful if anyone could offer some advice on how to go forward from here to get this colony through winter. I have a few thoughts at present:

1. Hold my nerve and see if they draw more out in coming weeks and try a couple of feeds, although have already done this and didnt seem to do much + got some serious wasp action once i had put a feed into hive.

2. I have some drawn out national frames from my last hive - i could put these into the hive to give them space to make stores for winter, although will be too short.

3. move them back into the nucleus for winter?

4. continue to panic and not really achieve anything!

Many thanks for any advice!

]

I doubt that they will draw out any more combs this late in the season .. if you haven't already done so I'd dummy them down to the frames that they have drawn ... and feed them. You will need about 7 full frames of stores to get them through the winter so if you don't have this much space in the hive then, yes, I'd give them a couple of drawn out frames for them to fill with your syrup. Mine are still bringing in stores from foraging so you might get a bit more natural food in there. What is the brood situation like ... my queen's still laying and I've got a lot of sealed brood so plenty of winter bees in the offing ... if you are light on capped brood feeding them may stimulate your queen into laying a bit more. More bees better for winter survival.

 

[sandysman]

]

I doubt that they will draw out any more combs this late in the season .. if you haven't already done so I'd dummy them down to the frames that they have drawn ... and feed them. You will need about 7 full frames of stores to get them through the winter so if you don't have this much space in the hive then, yes, I'd give them a couple of drawn out frames for them to fill with your syrup. Mine are still bringing in stores from foraging so you might get a bit more natural food in there. What is the brood situation like ... my queen's still laying and I've got a lot of sealed brood so plenty of winter bees in the offing ... if you are light on capped brood feeding them may stimulate your queen into laying a bit more. More bees better for winter survival.

I would also add a full block of fondant on top of the frames over the winter period as a belt and braces exercise.

Good luck.

 

[mbc]

Give them a heavy continuous feed, I cant see how it would draw any more attention from wasps if you're careful in not spilling any and its all contained within the hive. To help them draw the foundation work the frame arrangement a bit ie. move frames of foundation right up next to the brood and move full frames out, maybe alternating them a bit. I have read of people splitting the brood by putting a frame of foundation in between brood frames to get it drawn but I wouldnt advise this unless there is some serious bee power there, and your description suggests not.
To suggest that they wont draw any more foundation from here on in is laughable to anyone who actually keeps bees and observes what they can do IMO.
For instance, anybody had an apiguard eek plugged out with wild comb and honey from an ivy flow even as late as November ? It does happen on natural flows if the conditions are right so its pretty bloomin obvious they will draw comb given a flow to work, even if its an artificially created flow from a heavy feed.

 

[pargyle]

To suggest that they wont draw any more foundation from here on in is laughable to anyone who actually keeps bees and observes what they can do IMO.

Have you read the OP MBC ?

"Essentially i got a 14-12 nucleus at the end of july having lost my 1 colony over last winter. I moved them into full brood box mid august hoping that they would draw it all out. At present they have 6 drawn out frames and 5 undrawn - now starting to have mild panic!"

If they haven't drawn out foundation after the weather of the last couple of months and the forage available ... what chance do you, seriously, think there is of them changing to comb builders at this stage ... oh, and also build up stores to see them through the winter, oh ... and generate some winter bees ?

 

[itma]

You don't say whether your hive or nuc or both is poly.
It could make a difference to your immediate and next actions.

The bees need insulation and feeding.
You've left them under-tended rather late in the season.

You have some drawn National (not 14x12) brood frames.
****IF*** you know that your previous bees did not die out as a result of disease, then you do have the option of using them.
**IF** they are usable, then you certainly could use them. The bees would fill them with stores happily enough. Using them in between other stores frames would help ensure that any wild comb drawn below the frames would be fairly straight and hopefully not bracing between frames.

Something important would be to reduce the entrance down to a couple of beespaces now - if not already done.
With a small colony, you cannot afford to have them being bothered (let alone attacked and robbed) by wasps or even other bees.


Get yourself some Ambrosia and a small contact feeder, so you can extend your feeding season as long as possible.
Ambrosia can be stored almost instantly as it only needs to have a little water (about 5%) removed before it can be capped.
A contact feeder brings the feeding place as close to the bees as possible.

And find a local source for Baker's Fondant. Order your first box now!

 

[mbc]

If they haven't drawn out foundation after the weather of the last couple of months and the forage available ... what chance do you, seriously, think there is of them changing to comb builders at this stage ... oh, and also build up stores to see them through the winter, oh ... and generate some winter bees ?

Location Nottingham.
IIRC the flows up there tend to be over by the third week in July unless near heather or balsom, so what chance did they have of building comb without additional feed?

 

[mbc]

You don't say whether your hive or nuc or both is poly.
It could make a difference to your immediate and next actions.

The bees need insulation and feeding.
You've left them under-tended rather late in the season.

You have some drawn National (not 14x12) brood frames.
****IF*** you know that your previous bees did not die out as a result of disease, then you do have the option of using them.
**IF** they are usable, then you certainly could use them. The bees would fill them with stores happily enough. Using them in between other stores frames would help ensure that any wild comb drawn below the frames would be fairly straight and hopefully not bracing between frames.

Something important would be to reduce the entrance down to a couple of beespaces now - if not already done.
With a small colony, you cannot afford to have them being bothered (let alone attacked and robbed) by wasps or even other bees.


Get yourself some Ambrosia and a small contact feeder, so you can extend your feeding season as long as possible.
Ambrosia can be stored almost instantly as it only needs to have a little water (about 5%) removed before it can be capped.
A contact feeder brings the feeding place as close to the bees as possible.

And find a local source for Baker's Fondant. Order your first box now!

I would stick to a rapid feeder as contacts can dump their load a bit as the vacuum dissipates with the cooler evenings.

 

[pargyle]

Location Nottingham.
IIRC the flows up there tend to be over by the third week in July unless near heather or balsom, so what chance did they have of building comb without additional feed?

OK ... I agree with this to some extent ... but it has been a very good year for continous forage in most parts of the the county ... and I correspond with a couple of Northern beekeepers who have not seen a significant fall off in forage ... but even then, if they haven't made comb at this stage ... it really is too late to get them started IMHO ... better to concentrate them on other hive operations that will help them through winter. And we both agree on feed feed feed ...

 

[mbc]

This idea of them concentrating on other hive operations is the faulty bit IMHO, it all goes together, and if they're fed enough to draw some of the foundation then sure as eggs is eggs if the queen is any good she'l lay up a comb or two more of brood, what better preparation for winter are you imagining ?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Just been trying to coax on two nucs I've inherited -strange set up -a shallow frame nuc! they've been left for quite a while and there was no room for the queen to lay, brood in a small area on three frames, the rest stores- A bit too late to faff anound with frame changes etc. so I put them in a deep national nuc, swapped the stores frames for DN frames with foundation and piled on the syrup - one is a bit slow (they're actually trying to supersede the queen) the other took down 4 litres in a little over a day and on checking today they've drawn down all the shallow frames with free comb to the bottom of the hive and there's eggs and brood all over the shop. So if they want to, they will.

 

[BeeFlop]

many thanks for comments

to answer some of the questions

- it is a poly 14-12 nucleus and a wooden brood box.
- my entrance is already reduced to 1 bee space at present and wasp traps out as well
- the bees are foraging well as i can see with lots of pollen coming and also i think they have been at the balsam + just awaiting the ivy to kick in soon
- there is a good number of bees on inspection and you can see that they are still drawing some of the foundation out but just seems to be pretty slow going
- queen is laying well

what i might do then is to try a couple of national frames in between a couple of 14-12 and see if they start to fill them + feed them (ill try and get some ambrosia as well) + use fondant over the winter (i have done this previously). if does not work go for the poly nuc option over winter

final question OMF or solid floor for the winter?

many thanks again for everyones constructive comments, that has been really helpful.

 

[BeeFlop]

fprgot to add - will use a rapid feeder and be careful not to spill, have found probs with the rapid feeders dumping all the syrup through the hive which i thought was not great. or perhaps a frame feeder depending on space

 

[mbc]

final question OMF or solid floor for the winter?

Solid floor every time for me for less robust/smaller colonies.

 

[pargyle]

This idea of them concentrating on other hive operations is the faulty bit IMHO, it all goes together, and if they're fed enough to draw some of the foundation then sure as eggs is eggs if the queen is any good she'l lay up a comb or two more of brood, what better preparation for winter are you imagining ?

Yes ... and if you go to Post #3 you will see that I suggested that feeding may stimulate the queen into laying more .... I'm not arguing with any of your points ... in fact I think we are largely in agreement ... the only point of difference is whether they will draw more comb themselves ..

The OP states that:

"2. I have some drawn out national frames from my last hive - i could put these into the hive to give them space to make stores for winter, although will be too short."

If they need more room then it would make more sense to use these frames of (albeit short) drawn comb as a stop gap ... or possibly with frame extenders if it looked like they were going to draw some more comb. Personally, I wouldn't bother with frame extenders as the bees will extend them with free comb if they wish ... mine did with a national frame I had in my 14 x 12 hive ... very successfully,.

 

[BeeFlop]

thanks, will go solid then and get that changed over once finished varroa treatment

 

[BeeFlop]

thanks pargyle - didnt know you could actually get frame extenders! as you say will prob go without extenders for the time being and fingers crossed.

 

[mbc]

If they need more room then it would make more sense to use these frames of (albeit short) drawn comb as a stop gap ... or possibly with frame extenders if it looked like they were going to draw some more comb. Personally, I wouldn't bother with frame extenders as the bees will extend them with free comb if they wish ... mine did with a national frame I had in my 14 x 12 hive ... very successfully,.

Maybe, but largely dependent on where the existing brood is located, if its mostly towards the bottom of the deep frames then personally I'd stick to getting the deep foundation drawn, for two reasons, firstly, to avoid a void near the nest and the drawback of forcing the bees to build wild comb, and secondly to leave less problems to sort out next season. If the nest is only towards the middle and top of the deep(14x12) frames then there is some merit in providing the shallower, but drawn frames for them to more easily utilise.

 

[itma]

I would stick to a rapid feeder as contacts can dump their load a bit as the vacuum dissipates with the cooler evenings.

Main problem with contacts is people not fastening the 'lid' carefully, or lifting by the pot when the 'lid' is stuck down with prop.

A rapid feeder should be fine for now, but for the very latest possible feeding, they'll take later from a contact than from a rapid. If you are careful ... !