After a year of anticipation waiting from the campaign, to receiving the hive and then the frames. Assembling the hive from base to roof. Applying Tung Oil over many days to get the coating needed and sanding between and then waiting on the call from a local bee supplier telling my hive was ready. Going to and transferring frames from the starter hive to my brood box, leaving it in place for two days and going back to pick up for transport to my location. My Flow Frames are now in place and a really strong hive is thriving. Yesterday was the set up in my location and within a few hours, the bees were already coming back with pollen and going into the hive. Below are some pics before staining and then after set up. The change in coloration after the Tung oil was applied and the dark and light contrasts of the WRC is amazing. Here are some images and a videos after set up. I am extremely excited to start this new adventure in bee keeping. I was so excited that in the first video, I said the date was March 28 instead of May 28, 2016, which made me go back and record a second one later.
Disclaimer: I know I’m not supposed to put a feeder on with a super in place (or so has been said), but I only did this for one feeding because the hive was new to this location and I wanted them to at least have some extra food while learning the area. The five frames from the starter hive were slap full with drawn comb, some with double layer comb, lot of eggs, honey, and pollen already in place, so I thought one feeding would be ok. Any experts out there want to weigh in? Should I have or have not done this or should I actually do more until the other three empty frames are drawn out?
Your super should not be on till all the frames are drawn and you have 80% of the brood box frames covered in brood. A lot of people run two brood boxes, particularly if they are on eight frame Langs. It varies by locality so check around.
If you put when to put flow super on in the search there are quite a few threads on it.
Your set up looks awesome n great pix’s. As for adding you honey super/flow super at the beginning is jumping ahead of yourself. Your colony need really to draw out near 80% of your available frames before adding any honey super like Dee n I am sure others would/will advise.
Also sir ! Have you checked to see if your region advises a second deep or couple medium supers before adding a "Honey Super (any kind). I’d check with that bee supplier n/or local beekeeper/club recommendations. Remember your goal is getting your bees thru it first healthy year not the harvest of “Liquid Gold”. To get a colony of honeybees thru your first winter the colony will need approx 80 pounds of honey. So make sure your bees/your investment will make the second 2017 season.
These are several of my five bee colonies here Southeast of Seattle in the foothills. I am returning to beekeeping after 55 years away. I ordered 3 five Nuc’s last October 2015. My 3 Nuc’s arrived mid April so we’re 1 1/2 months into our rearing of my bees n moving toward filling their first super. One of my hives is a Swarm I got end of April n the second 10 frame is a split from one of my super duper Nuc’s that got ahead of me at adding the first honey super. The other two hives were okay n didn’t start queen cells so I have a fifth hive/colony this first season. <imgsrc="//cdck-file-uploads-global.s3.dualstack.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/business6/uploads/honeyflow/original/2X/9/9ccfce650bee9df36dc4c2e7105d1bea963c5172.jpg" width=“281” height=“500”>
… As for having a feeder. I wouldn’t disagree using one to give your colonies a healthy start. My narrow 5 frame n split both have feeders. Our main nectar flow is presently starting so doubt I will refill either if they are packing away new nectar/pollens at this Monday’s hive inspection 5/30…
Thank you Dee and Gerald. Always take any advice I get. And with that, I have removed the super. Luckily nothing was started in the flow frames since it had only been a day. However, the brood box is really full. The five frames from the starter hive that I received were completely full to the edges with several really thick combs. One had double layer comb (term eludes me at the moment). Another even had a queen cell started in creation. So it looks like I will be having a second hive sometime in the near future. I will continue with the feeding too. Also, I haven’t been able to get another brood box or deep super yet, but I will be getting them in the next few days to add. My local bee supplier did suggest I do that soon because this hive was so full.
Just out of curiosity: Once the new queen cell is developed and a queen is produced, should I just remove that frame with the new queen and put it over to a new hive with a couple other frames?
Hi Rob,
I wouldn’t split your hive this early on, give it at least a year. If all is right in the colony, queen cells will not be produced this season. However, if they do produce a new queen then there is probably a good reason for it and you should let the bees take care of it.
Question: is there more than one Q.C. or just the one. Also where on the frame is/are the cell(s) ? Additionally: is there jelly n egg or a larva in the cell yet ?
I see your 8 frame is nearly stuff … As your supplier has mentioned … Get a super on it ASAP. That’s a no brainer ! You really have limited resources for a healthy split as Rod mentioned. I got really mature Nuc’s in mid April n one really exploded … I ended up with multiple swarm cells so had no choice. I was lucky as I had several other maturing hives to draw resources from…
Normally if you get multiple capped QC’s. The Queen is transformed with bees, capped brood n a frame of honey/pollen/brood mix n honey frame or frame feeder so they don’t starve. That’s why I started the season with three colonies/Nuc’s stuffed with bees n resources. Normally I’d wanted to NOT do a Split but I was forced into the Split ! My other two hives are doing their normal first year process.
Hopefully that give you some thots or answers. Gerald.
Sorry for the late reply. I did not split and I am not planning on it. I did add a another deep box and mixed the full frames between the two and placed more empty frames between. Going to make a second brood box out of this one. Will be adding a super this Saturday. The frames that are full, are really busting full and do have a lot of mix honey/pollen/brood so I’m not too worried.
I actually took the frame with the QC and placed it in the second brood box. As far as I could tell, Gerald, there is only one QC. During my hive check on Saturday, it was so too covered to tell what was in the cell and a lot of activity around and on it. The Saturday before, it was empty, but looked to be almost completely formed ready for egg.
here’s two of my top feeder setups. It helps prevent robbing … My bigger 10 frame hives I use an internal 2 gallon top feeder.
