I’ve had the pleasure of rescuing some bees that were living in a utility box, near the street, in Southern California.
The bees were brought to my urban home (backyard) in March. I added the honey super about 2 months later. Upon doing a late summer hive inspection, I noticed a bit of capped honey down in the brood box, all the frames filled in, and (what appeared) to be a healthy hive.
I’m wondering if I should be concerned that they haven’t done to much to the top flow frames? Should I expect them to fill those up this coming spring?
Hi Wendy and welcome It’s great that you were able to house those utility box bees, that sounds like a win-win! Was this a swarm cluster, or was there comb with brood established in the box when you removed the bees?
I’m assuming that the queen survived the transfer and that by this point in time the bees had fully built out at least one brood box, and there was a decent nectar flow on in your area. Those are the general conditions for supering, but you also have to manage swarming.
So if you’re not seeing honey storage in the super, something was not aligning with those assumptions and conditions and you should probably remove the super for now to reduce the space the bees have to defend.
I hope that helps! Please feel free to post more details so I can be more specific about what’s happening.
This looked to be a new colony starting out. There was a few rows of comb, maybe 4 or 5. All looked pretty new. There was some brood. The queen did survive the transfer! She is doing quite well!
I’ll confess this is all new for me. I have a local beekeeper/mentor helping me. He said it was ok to add the super on. I’m just wondering if they don’t like the flow frames?
There is very little nectar flow at this time of year in SoCal, apart from occasional eucalypts flowering, if you have the right species near you. I would take the super off until about March, then rub some burr comb onto the plastic frames before you put it back on. It should work much better next year
You can do that, or just leave it off until evening. The bees will not stay out in the cold once the sun sets, so you can let them leave of their own accord if that is convenient for you
It’s great that you were able to house those utility box bees, that sounds like a win-win! Was this a swarm cluster, or was there comb with brood established in the box when you removed the bees?
