Hi all,
I have a slow hive and have been told to add a full capped brood frame or 2 to the hive to help I along a bit faster and to catch up with the other 3 hives I have .
The queens laying eggs ( didn’t find the queen ) as I inspected it today with fresh eggs and larvae capped and uncapped .
There are 3 foundation frames untouched and have been untouched for 4 weeks now and have only gone to 2 new frames I added out of the Five as I started with a 5 fame nucleus
Is this a good idea to add 2 brood frames ?
The original nucleus supplyer said he ill sell me 2
Pauly
Hi Pauly, adding a frame or two of brood can certainly help boost a small colony that isn’t otherwise hampered by pest or disease. Since you just inspected I am assuming all is well there. But - How is the nectar flow in your area now? If you’re heading for or already in a dearth, the bees will deliberately slow down brood rearing. Thinking of this plus the work it takes for a colony to forage and care for young will help you decide how to help.
1 Like
In Hornsby at present you should be OK. Grab a frame of mostly sealed brood from your strongest hive and put it in the centre of your weak hive. Sealed brood is not using resources. Check again next week and repeat if necessary.
Shake the bees off the donor frame or you will have fighting.
Cheers
Rob.
1 Like
Hi Pauly, I agree with @Eva to make sure the weak hive doesn’t have any disease. Adding a frame of brood is my favorite way to boost a weak colony. I’m guessing that hive beetles are in your area. When adding a frame of brood, I’m always working out if the colony is strong enough to support & protect the extra frame of brood. I try to choose a frame with mostly emerging bees. That will quickly boost the numbers. Like @Rmcpb suggests, give them one frame today, then another one in a week or so, after the emerging bees have matured a bit & are able to help with defending.
1 Like
Hi jeff
I added 2 new 3/4 full and capped brood frames today at lunchtime and the bees should start hatching the next few days as one hatched as o put the frame in.
The hive had actually started on one of the foundation frames to the left that wasn’t touched yesterday when I inspected the hive…
I moved the hive beetle traps to the middle of the frames from the ends and that seemed to of helped also big maybe just a coincidence.
The hive now has 8 full frames so fingers crossed
2 Likes
Sealed brood uses resources. It needs stable temperature around 34-35 °C. Such “climate control” requires energy and subsequently resources, including food and man… err beepower. Otherwise it would be possible to stuff a box with frames of sealed brood, maybe to throw a queen in for a good measure and expect fully populated hive in few days.
Some numbers from literature. Here is a graph showing food consumption of a colony (500 grams of bees) per 2 hours - vertical axis. Horizontal axis - temperature of the air surrounding colony. In this experiment colony was put in cage, so there was no protection provided by box of any type.
Adding sealed brood to a weak colony require a bit of caution. Even one frame can boost it significantly and more manageable for such colony. When the first frame hatched it is possible to add more frames since workforce increased quite noticeably.
3 Likes
equalizing hives by either adding or removing brood is a great way to manage bees. here is an brilliant video of a Canadian commercial beekeeper doing just that on a big scale:
having said that- it can be a disease risk. I know an urban beekeeper from Sydney and she maintains a total barrier system for her 100 hives. She keeps all frames separate to prevent any possibility of AFB getting spread throughout her apiaries.
Hi Pauly, with 8 full frames, your hive is well on it’s way. Generally if you see one bee emerging, then others will be following. It’s amazing the difference just one full frame of sealed & emerging bees makes to a weak colony. Just consider, the bees have the potential to raise over 6k bees on one frame. I try to keep all of my brood frames with a high percentage of worker comb, that way a colony can produce a strong workforce. With a strong colony of workers, coupled with good beekeeping practices, you can dispense with beetle traps. I don’t use any at all.
1 Like
I think the title of the video Jack posted is quite relevant here, equalising in anticipation of the flow, although in this case we’re talking increasing the size of the colony. Yes there can be benefits in increasing and equalising colony’s, equalising especially however I wouldn’t want to strengthen a colony that doesn’t have the means to support the added numbers ie during a dearth or adding brood that can’t be maintained by the existing bees.
1 Like