Hi guys, I was a bit late adding the super 6wks ago - brood box was full with the last frame just honey, but everything else brood. There were a few queens cells at the time, including one that had hatched. I removed them all as there were plenty of eggs. The hive swarmed anyway about a week later. When I rechecked 2wks ago, the brood box is now about 70% nectar with very little brood cells. They weren’t using the super at all, so I swapped out 3 super frames for plain empty frames thinking maybe they didn’t like the plastic. I’ve just checked super and there are a handful of bees hanging out up there, but they haven’t built any comb at all.
I’m opening the hive later today so if I do find frames full of honey again, can I move them to the super and replace them with empty ones in brood box? Is there any other way to encourage them to move the honey up to super?
Hi Lisa. First of all, to be pedantic, the bees convert nectar into honey, even while flying back to their hive, then the process continues after the very unripe honey is delivered into the hive.
Yes you can move honey frames out of the brood into the super before replacing them with empty frames. You can also move brood frames into the honey super provided there is enough worker bees to care for it, while at the same time they start working on the empty frames you replace them with.
The best way to get bees to voluntarily move honey out of a brood box is for the colony to have a young vigorous, well mated queen bee. Her progeny will naturally move honey out of brood frames in order for her to lay eggs. They will arrange the frames exactly how they want them, depending on the time of season.
It’s worth remembering that while we sleep, bees are still working in their hives rearranging things to their own liking. Added to that, things can only happen according to the size of the worker force inside a hive.