If all frames have fully drawn comb, and they are making use of the outer frames, and you see plenty of bees, I would add the next box. Like Michael Bush, I consider adding when the existing box is about 80% full, so just over 6 of the 8 frames are fully in use.
I am interested in the idea of adding it below the current box - that might be a good move, although it will mean that you have to lift a heavy upper box every time in the future when you are inspecting to see how they are doing with filling the lower box.
If it all looks good this weekend (approx 80% of the available comb has something in it), I would consider adding that second brood box.
Hello Marty
I presume two brood boxes is what most beekeepers run in your area. What I would do is wait till you have six frames full of brood then put another box on top. I think you have all your frames drawn? Then donât be feeding or the bees will store the sugar and the queen will have nowhere to lay. When the new box goes on you could give a little syrup but by then there should be good natural nectar. You could put a box underneath any time and the bees would use it when they were ready.
First all the frames need to be drawn so patience is the thing
I would watch the progress of the colony and put the new box on top when itâs timely
I like to give what the bees need Brood Box when they have almost filled it, Iâll place another Brood Box on it until that show thatâs about to fill up. I place a super on then. That is a strong hive now and then if another super is needed, I add another. Usually that is enough for them to get by with here is southern Calif the last several years with the lack of flower and tree flowering in my neighborhood⌠Watch for swarming, watch for mites, watch for wax moth, watch for dumb dogs and people who after one has done all the work take the supers or the whole hive.
I would place the Flow box on top of the first super, I do use a queen excluder. Having a flow system I have not yet had the build up of bees yet to install it. It seems this year they are not building up numbers as in past. But my past bees came from a hive that pretty much had to be two to three years in the making. After I requeen there was problems in not accepting her and had to requeen again. Split hives and one in good shape but still working hard on other.
I keep seeing this. Would one of you more experienced Beeks mind answering why this is? My understanding is that guard bees guard the entrance, not make patrols around the hive. Wouldnât an entrance reducer protect a small single deep hive better than limiting the empty space? Itâs not like robbers can fly through the wooden walls of an un-populated super; there are only so many entrances. Right?
The only drawback I can imagine is that their natural tendency to build vertically would mean that theyâd start drawing the comb in the lower brood box before expanding out to the outer frames. Is that even an issue? One of the overwintering myths Iâve seen debunked (in a couple of places, including Rustyâs blog) is that bees donât heat the hive, they heat the cluster. In nature, itâs not like the tree-hollow expands after theyâve built up a certain amount of comb, either. What would happen if you install a nuc into the top brood box of a 2 medium hive, close the corrugated IPM board so itâs not so drafty as they build up, and just leave them to it for 3-4 weeks? (Excluding minimal cross-comb inspections and such, or maybe some shuffling to ensure that they draw straight comb (checker-boarding an empty frame between 2 drawn frames)).
But Iâm new. Iâm still researching before building my first hives next year⌠So, please forgive my ignorance. Iâm just curious.
Hi guys! My name is Serge i m from Canada New -Brunswick. I just install a second brood box a week ago and on my first inspection i notice that the bees are building their honey comb upside down, starting from the top of the first box to the bottom of my new one. Don t really know what to do with this. Thanks
Sorry for the bad explanation, i have no photos now. i don t wan t to disturb my bees before i know what to do next. I have my first brood box under the one i just install and the bees are building from the bottom of the second one, the one on top.They don t build from the top going down, is this better ? Serge
Should i ve install the existing one on top of my new one maybe ? And can i still do it without disturbing my bees to much, and destroying all their work so far ? Thank you very much for your help
In nature, wild bees build from the top down. That is natural for them. So if you put an empty box above the existing strong brood box, it makes a lot more work for the bees. There are many reasons:
The bees usually put brood in the top half of the top box. They need to keep the brood at 32-35C to help them hatch. Hot air rises, so if the brood stays at the top of the box, that is good. If you put an empty box on top of a hive, you make more space in the hive for the bees to heat. That takes more energy and more bees on patrol = less honey for the hive and less defense of the hive from pests and predators.
Bees usually make brood in the center of frames like this:
You can see that the the brood is a rising half-moon shape, but the bees would like it to be a full circle. The queen almost always starts âdrawing the top of the brood circleâ first, so it is up to us to read that signal and provide more space for her below. So if I put an empty frame below the one in this photo, the queen will much more quickly fill the circle than if I put an empty frame above. If I donât do that, the bees have to move all of the food stores around and wait for babies to hatch before they can get things the way that works best for them.
So to directly answer your question, I would move your second box below the first one, unless you only need one brood box in your part of the world (tropical climate). In Canada, you definitely need 2 or even 3 brood boxes, so I would move it down ASAP.
Does this ring a bell? This is what I found after installing my second brood box on top of the first - comb being drawn from the tops of the first frames and along the bottoms of the next frames. Luckily they werenât far along with it so I scraped it all off and put the second box under the first.
Hi, you can replace the honey only frames, however in a 2-3 weeks after inserting new frames, the bees will should have drawn them out and the queen will lay brood across all 8 frames. You will no longer be able to shuffle frames as there will be no where for them to go. The swarm season lasts for 2-3months so chance are your bees will swarm, if you are prepared you can catch them and re-combine at a later date however this creates more work and the death of one of your queens. Far easier to shuffle frames up into an extra super.
