If you have colony that has few frames of stores and have not moved up into the super, take one of the store frames and mess it up. press into the capping in away that the bees have to move the honey out to fix the frame. Place this frame into the centre of a brood, the bees will not like that and will move the honey up. This will also create a space for the queen to lay. Two weeks later you will see the frame fully laid by the queen.
I have done this on single brood & double brood and they have moved the stores up. If your super is not wax they will use the stores to make wax and wax the super. WARNING don’t do this if you have only one store frame and no nectar coming in as the bees would need some stores for food.
Hi Paras, that’s a great strategy. Decapping the frame like you suggest will give quick results. I do this without decapping the honey which gives the same result, however less messy. The bees will always arrange the brood frames to exactly how they want them.
I have tried that at times they have left the frame as is and the queen just goes around the frame on the other side to lay. I found that de-capping the frame the bees don’t like that and move the honey up as soon as they do that they start to use the super and fill it quickly.
Hi Paras, that would happen with a weaker colony. A strong colony will always eventually arrange the brood frames to their own liking. That is: the honey arc with pollen & brood below it.
I see what you’re talking about myself when I scrape bulging honey back to level with the frame on brood frames. The bees don’t recap it level with the frame, they clean the honey out completely, before the queen lays eggs in the cells.
One of my newly mated colony had not much space for the queen to lay, She had 2 frame to lay in and 6 frames of capped honey. I messed up 4 frames of the capped honey and they moved all that up and she has laid on the frames. All of them have larvae today.
That’s fantastic Paras, however knowing bee behavior, that shouldn’t be necessary, because bees will do that in their own good time at their own pace.
I thought of this thread yesterday while doing splits. One brood frame had a beautiful new section of eggs & larvae where the bees had obviously moved a band of honey away for the queen to lay more eggs. The whole honey arc had been raised, more on one side than the other, which was exactly how the bees wanted it, at this particular time of season & in accordance with the current population of house & nurse bees.
PS @Paras , it’s easy for us to forget that bees are working inside the hive 24/7. If we put our ear up to a hive during the night, we’ll hear a beautiful hum of bee activity inside the hive.
