Ok, did all the right things, expanded one brood box accordingly, put the flow super on, harvested a couple of frames and will harvest more tomorrow, but my bees can’t be stopped building comb in the roof space.
Purchased a couple of ideal boxes, have them ready to go by tomorrow, after work, with foundationless frames. Just put a lil strip of timber up top.
The bees prob will start building immediately if I put that medium above the flow box. Especially if I rubber strip the roof comb into one of the medium ideal frames.
Might get some nice honey comb. But is mainly to easily observe, coz its up top.
However, my second and prob primary idea is to put that ideal box right above the 1 brood box, for the bees to expand into it enough with brood so they finally cap out that brood nest size uncapped in all my middle flow frames. It just looks the bees keep expecting the queen to go there, which ain’t happen coz of the qx.
Or do I put an ideal below qx plus above flow frames? Certainly have enough bees for both.
My thinking was, either or, so I have time to paint one box while the other unpainted is in action, and swap over later to paint the other.
Help!
Even though they don’t seem to be keen on swarming in autumn, I need to do something to satisfy their urge to expand.
Everybody here says you only need one brood box. But what do you do when they obviously need more space?
@JeffH @Michael_Bush @Valli @Dee @Dawn_SD and everybody else who has some advice.
Don’t think a split is advisable this late in even subtropical. Even though I would have all the boxes ready.
Just got a couple of mediums (called ideals here, I think) ready now to ward things off and half expand.
Where do you advise to put one, or two? Above flow super, above the one brood box below qx? Or both?
These kind of decisions are very much based on locality and climate. Here, (Nebraska) with ten frame deep Langstroths people routinely use two brood boxes. This is a cold climate (very cold winters). In warmer states (Georgia, Florida etc.) people routinely use one brood box. As far as adding additional boxes, I would add them to the top so the bees are more likely to fill the Flow frames and leverage the ease of harvest that you paid for…
Ah. That was my first idea, put it up top, coz that flow urge is on for now.
I agree with @Michael_Bush. You can always give it back to them later if you have a nectar dearth.
Do you have one or two brood boxes? and if you are getting a good nectar flow then just place your new box on top of the Flow super. I only use the same size boxes, makes it so much easier to move brood frames out, and after a couple of years in the brood chamber… they will need to be cycled out. Additionally, having another box of the same size as your brood means that annual re-coat of oil, stain or paint gets to be a simple swap over…
Regarding the bees in your roof, you only need to place a mat of vinyl or polyester over the top of your super, I cut up squares from chicken feed bags then lay these over the top of my hives, it does the trick.