Hey all, very new to bee keeping (first hive). It seems I have a very active, very full colony but for some reason they don’t want to make their way up to the super. As you can see from the photos, this box of very full but they just don’t want to move up. For weeks now.
I have recently tried coating the flow frames with melted wax but still they don’t want to go up.
Any tips? Tricks, advice?
Also, lots and lots of brood so I’m hoping they don’t swarm on me. No sign of queen cell yet.
That’s interesting. I had the same and my first hive swarmed, but I hadn’t put wax in the frames (I have now). I saw Cedar talking about some beeks removing the queen excluder, and Cedar said he had one or two hives like that, where the queen wouldn’t lay in the flow frames. I will be very interested to see how your situation turns out, because I will try without the excluder if they ignore the frames again.
If you have a lot of brood, there is a possibility that your colony will swarm. Is the vast majority of the brood workers? If so, that indicates a large increase in workers going forward.
My suggestion would be to open the brood up a little, by removing 2 brood frames, before placing them in the middle of the honey super, while temporarily removing 2 Flow frames. Put the gaps on the sides.
Replace those brood frames with fresh foundation frames, in a checkerboard fashion. As the population builds, they’ll start storing honey in the frames provided.
I believe it’s a mistake to focus on honey production during the spring buildup. We need to focus more on swarm prevention measures.
Hi Jordy, yes leave the brood frames in the honey super, above the QE until after the brood has emerged & is replaced with honey. By that time they should be working the adjacent Flow frames. Break any drone brood off the frames first. Drones are the last to emerge, plus they can’t get back down through the QE, where they’ll die trying to.
Went to do the frame swap, pulled out the middle flow frame and noticed a few bees (30-50) working on the bottom corner of the flow frame. Many had their heads in I think sealing the frames up.
I decided not to do the frame swap and see if they continue to work in the super.
Hi Jordy, as the population builds, more bees will venture into the honey super, however you are in spring, so therefore you need to keep an eye on swarm prevention, as well as seeing if the colony starts working the Flow frames.
“Opening the brood” is a step towards swarm prevention, which needs to happen several times (depending on the colony), during spring if we’re serious about preventing our colonies from swarming. The 2 frames I suggested was only the first step.
My understanding of this forum is: foremost a support for Flow hive owners. A place to ask questions & seek knowledge. A place to share successes, as well as failures. Importantly to learn from failures, because we’ve all been there, so therefore we as individuals can share how we may have overcome a particular problem.
It’s unfortunate that this forum is not for you. It’s hard to please everybody, all the time.
Don’t take it to heart. I’ve been called “a troll”, accused of being an irresponsible beekeeper, WRONG quite a few times. I was even chipped by a moderator for using chat room abbreviations. I’m still here.
One thing I did notice is that you contradicted yourself at least once. That’s something we need to be careful of, & could lead to negative reactions.
Asking questions that we already know the answer to is something new to this forum. I’d say that every possible situation to do with bees has already been covered. All we need to do is click on the magnifying glass & ask away.
You mentioned “don’t have the time”. The point is: we’re all time poor at different times. Sometimes it’s quicker to direct someone to something that has really good information, rather than type it out yourself. I wouldn’t direct someone to information unless I agreed with the information, because if the information is dodgy, that would be a reflection on me.
I don’t think that directing someone to a Wikipedia page is poor form, especially if that’s the only reply you get. Hats off to the person giving the reply, because it’s mostly given in good faith. To be ungrateful would be poor form in my books. We’re not paid employees.
I mentioned yesterday that I got chipped for using chat room abbreviations.
All I was saying to people was I’ll ttyl. No big deal, I thought.
I only used one more after that. I waited for him to post a long message, so I could say tl;dr.
My husband hates these type of abbreviations, but they are very common in messaging these days. @JeffH is just showing how up to date he is with young people’s habits!
