G’day team, new to this bee game. Got our first newcs in Nov. Have opened the hive this morning to discover masses of honey in the brood frames.I have two hives one has lots of activity in the supers, but no honey yet. The other is about 1/3 full in the supers. However there is a mass of honey in the brood box. Do I slowly replace the honey frames with new foundation . I have read somewhere else that scratching the top off the honey cells makes the bees move it to the super ??? Most frames in the brood box have honey at one end and babies at the other.
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Hi Gazza, I would leave it as it is, the bees know what they want. If the bees want more room for the queen to lay in, they’ll simply remove the honey from the cells & use it or store it elsewhere. While we’re asleep, they’re still working.
A lot of what’s going on in the brood is governed by what is coming in by way of pollen & honey. Also the size of the colony & the genetic makeup of the queen & how successfully she mated. Then you have to consider the time of the season.
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Thanks Jeff. I was just a bit concerned with them swarming due to lack of space, but I’ll take your advice and ride it out.
Yeah well swarming is a different matter. Sometimes they’ll prepare to swarm for no apparent reason. I’m noticing that with my own bees lately. The other day I found a colony preparing to swarm where space wasn’t an issue. Colonies with older queens are more prone to swarming than colonies with younger queens. However that still isn’t an accurate guide. The other day I found a colony with a young queen preparing to swarm.
Swarming is how bees reproduce, that’s how they have sex, so to speak. We all know how strong those urges can be.
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To quote Days of Our lives “And for all those who can remember”
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Hi Gazza . I have the same thing. An 8 frame brood box containg 6 frames of brood and two of honey. The 6 frames of brood are all on right if you look at it from the the bees entrance. And two frames of honey on yhe left. The bees have just started to work on the flow frames and started in the middle of the middle two frames.
Last weekend, because i was worried about swarming, I removed a frame of brood so as to give the queen more room to lay and she seems to have already filled that space. What now?
What does the queen do when she’s not laying?
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