Why won't my bees draw out the supers?

[Ewok]

I think the forum is running out of ideas

If you put one frame of the super foundation in the brood, do you think they would start to draw it...then conitnue to draw if it is then repalced in the super ...or get another hive to start the intial drawing?

I must say 'Thanks for all the ideas', it's just a matter of time to see what works now.

I had thought about putting a super frame into the brood box & then transfering it to the supper, but then our first hive swarmed & we lost the (clipped) queen & I forgot all about it :-(

Unfortunately all my 14X12s are in the same state, my WBC is busy building up to it's 6th frame & the TBH is full of laying workers, so I couldn't use another hive to draw some super frames out.

 

[Gillybee]

with RAB on the foundation issue as I also had difficulty fitting 14x12 wax sheets from KBS to 14x12 thornes second frames even when I checked for squarness, some thing has gone wrong with the manufacturing I guess!!!

 

[Hivemaker.]

Strange, KBS foundation not fitting,iv'e had thousands of sheets of it this season,all seems to fit just perfect.

 

[Ewok]

Hey guys,

Wax is not a stable medium, how the manufacturer/wholesaler/supplier & user store & transport it , affects it a great deal.
I've had Thornes foundation fit my frames perfectly and had batches that needed 2mm trimmed off to square it.
The nearer you are to the manufacturer & the fresher it is the more consistant it will be. However, the raw material is a different question!

 

[OXFORDBEE]

Human error is the main reason for size differences between wax sheets and frames.

Also, second frames can dimensionally vary and the groves on the sidebars do vary in depth. They are seconds after all, and somtimes wax sheets to require to be trimmed before fitting.

I tend to look on the positive side and as long as I have to trim the wax sheets slightly because they are too large I'm not bothered. I can always trim 5 sheets at once to speed things up.

If the wax sheets did not fit because they were too small that would be a different matter.

 

[Ewok]

Latest update:

I think I've tried too many things at the same time:- each of my hives got a new sheet of broodbox foundation, and added a drawn frame to each super.

My queenless hive had 1/3 drawn out the BB frame and some nectar is already being stored there. The drawn frame in the super is being fillled with nectar, and the neighbouring frames show signs of being drawn, but not much - should have waited adding the foundation to the broodbox!

 

[Ewok]

Further update,

I checked the two queen right hives today - they have filled the drawn frame in the super with nectar and are now drawing out the two frames on either side of it.

They just needed a little hint after all