do I need a pratition between the lower and the upper brood box. Will they fix the second brood box on the first one, and also fix the frames of the second brood box on the frames of the first one. I am new on beekeeping. I have my bees since 3 weeks and about 80% of the frames are full. I puted a wax sheet on my frames. Now I want to add the second brood box. I live in southern Italy, in the hills. We have winter here.
Lets see how you go reading this, it must be hard not having English as well spoken and being a new bee keeper trying to figure it all out, but if there is something you don’t understand just ask for it to be better explained.
You should not have a partition between a bottom and a top brood box. That is the area for the queen to lay eggs and for the new bees but in the outer frames will be some honey and pollen that should not be disturbed.
Above the second brood box you should have a queen excluder which is a wire frame that fits over the brood box if you want to put a honey super on the hive so that you can collect the honey for yourself. Of course the honey super should have wired frames with foundation fitted so that the bees can build honey comb on it and then fill it with honey.
You should join a local bee keeper club and they can help you with local knowledge as I am in Australia in a different climate.
Welcome to the forum Evelina.
Thank you Peter for your prompt answer. It is very helpful. I bought a flow hive with two breed boxes and everything is going well until now. I think I prefer to have a strong colony with two breed boxes and hopefully I will add the super later on this year or even next year. I am living far away from everything in the region of Molise. There are some local beekeepers but in Italy everybody uses DB hives and Langstroth isn’t well seen although the rest of the world is using Langstroth. Flow hive is unknown in my region, there is people in northern Italy, they have a flow hive. So I am happy to chat with you in Australia about the questions I have about flow hive. thank you again.
I have 2 flow hive supers and all the rest are langstroth’s, they are the most popular of the traditional hives here. I have now 7 hives and a few I look after and was contacted today about looking after another 6 or 8. The owner of the hives is not sure. I will fit the flow hives in our spring, June is the start of our winter but the bees forage all of the year here, my climate is sub-tropical.
Glad to be able to help but let me know if you don’t understand what I am explaining to you.
Regards to you
Hi there @Evelina_Colavita and welcome! Your question is a good one, and the answer is yes. Boxes that are stacked will be attached by the bees with propolis, a tree sap substance they use to fill gaps. It’s not a problem for you if you have a good hive tool and strong wrists You’ll get used to prying into your boxes to separate them for inspection. Also, the bees will propolize frames in place and you’ll need to gently pry them apart and up as you inspect.
As for the frames of the upper and lower boxes becoming stuck together, yes this can happen too, but with comb. Comb usually comes apart easily so it will separate when you lift your upper box from your lower, and probably won’t cause too much of a problem. To ensure you don’t crush bees that might cling to this “bridge comb”, use an empty super or an upside down outer cover (langstroth type) as a resting place for the box you remove. That way, any comb projecting down past the box rim won’t be flattened.
It sounds like your bees are doing well if you are putting another brood box on! But, if winter in your area means a low nectar flow/no nectar, I doubt if they’ll be able to build the second box as quickly. Do you expect another nectar flow soon?
Thank you Eva. So everything will stick together as I immagined. We will se how I can manage.
You will find the hive tool very handy for levering the hive boxes to get them to separate and to pry the frames so that you can remove them to inspect them. I have my frames touching each other at the shoulders, that is the widest part of the frame, and this will leave a small gap against the hive box sides. Lever the outer frame towards the box side and again use your hive toll to lever it free then gently lift it out and check the frame. Place it against the side of the hive. Now you have more room to do the same with the rest of the frames.
It depends what I am going into the hive for but if you look at the second frame and return it to position 1 then go onto frame3 and so on you will always have room to inspect each frame with as little disturbance to the bees as possible. When you have inspected all the frames move each frame back across the hive to put frame1 back into its position.
Regards
Hi Evelina, I am in Sicila, and our Spring has officially sprung here. (Winter has finished here) We are having mid 20’s to 30 degrees at the moment, and lots of flowers blooming.
Being near Napoli, it mustn’t get too cold in winter? How many brood boxes do the local beekeepers use in your area?
Here they also use DB/dadant, which is the equivalent of a Langstroth 10 hive, and they only use 1 brood box (the beekeepers I have met), but Sicilia may be a bit warmer than Molise.
Hello Faroe, I am glad that there is somebody even more south than me who has a flow hive. I know that in Italy everybody uses DB hives. I think we will add the second brood box in about 10 days. Here it is rather hot as well and everything is blooing since weeks. but of course winters are longer and colder than in Sicily and even than in Napoli, we are in the hills of the adriatic side of Italy, that means it’s colder and more dry than on the other side.
Hi Peter. In looking for some info on my problem I found this post. In order to try and prevent swarming this spring, I added an Ideal above the brood box to both my flow hives. (Originally just brood and super boxes).
I’ve just inspected one hive and found that the bees had joined the Ideal and Brood box frames with honeycomb. The QX was above the Ideal and the Ideal was completely filled out with capped honey. Quite messy to separate and sadly a number of bees were sacrificed in my first time experiencing this issue.
You have possibly provided the answer above to my question but somewhere in looking for a solution to this problem I thought I had read about putting in a partition between the boxes to prevent this issue. I have added a vinyl/lino partition today but ensured space along the edges and ends for the bees to move around.
Would really appreciate your thoughts on the pros/cons or otherwise of my decision.
I’m in central Victoria.