You can put it on the bottom or on the top - your choice. If you are worried about the weight of lifting full boxes, I would put it on top, even if you are going to use it for brood. A medium will be much lighter to lift during inspections. If the deep is on the bottom, you will only need to lift it a couple of times per year to clean off the bottom board. If it is the second box up, you will need to lift it several times per month, which I think you wanted to avoid.
When all existing boxes have all frames with fully drawn comb and 80% full of brood or food, plus every frame is covered with bees, you can add another box - Flow super or whatever.
If it was SHB and they are slimed or fermenting, render or discard them. The bees wonāt like them. If it was just wax moth and no slime, plus you froze them for 48 hours, you could reuse them.
Thanks Gerald and Dawn. I did freeze the frames and this was the new comb in the box I added. It is nice color. The original box with the bugs got rid of after I froze. OK . I am trying to see if I can lure bees into a box I borrowed to start another hive. No one really wants to share their bees and I enjoyed the cut out but canāt do it alone and could not find a beekeeper to help with the second hive I heard about. So I am going to put it out on the farm and wait see. Trying what a friend said geranium and lemon grass oil? Have to research this more but I have 2 flow supers and I would love a second hive. Just call mee bee hunter
Got robbed out last fall during dearth . New packages this April, used old drawn out frames with great results, fed the hell out of them w/pollen patty. week 4- capped honey ,brood, larvae, new bees emerging. Great way to start a new hive, less effort on the new bees, still cool here, 47. Go for it.
Wow, somehow I missed this when you first posted it @Cowgirl!! Great stuff.
I posted about basically the same right after installing my two nucs 4/29. I had a lot of decent comb & some stores leftover from my die-out too, but I extracted four frames of lovely honey that was in seriously wavy comb - a two-fer! Each nuc got three frames of comb, some of which had nectar, honey and pollen (previously frozen), and the flow was good so I didnāt feed right away.
At inspection on 5/4 I added a medium second brood box to one hive that was bursting with bees, plus a quart baggie of 1:1 - bad weather ahead and only a little comb on those medium frames from last year. Gave the other hive the same feed but no new box yet as they seemed slower - two outer frames of rubber banded comb still not fully drawn/repaired/cleaned out & populated yet. Entrances still reduced due to chilly nighttime temps here for awhile.
And how are things going at this stage, @Cowgirl and the rest of our second year beeks?!
HiĢ Will,
Yes ! Introducing honeybees to a hive using drawn comb is sure another story. On April
15th I picked up four Nucās of bees from my supplier. Iād lost three extremely large strong colonies last Autumn to varroa mites so had an amazing amount of totally drawn comb to use.
I set up the four with all that honeycomb ā¦ I guess it had been way too many years since I raised bees back in the 1950ās n 60ās. Old men n time makes the details rather fuzzy until it happens. They are really expanding fast ! I really wasnāt prepared thot wise how quickly they are filling all that drawn comb but I shouldnāt be surprised. Over half or maybe more was just producing wax n making honeycomb in all those frame.
As of several days ago Iāve added the first honey super above the Q.E. Iāve not be fudging either. Each hive has been nicely grown to near or over 80% when I added each additional super. My 2017 season even with colder n much wetter conditions has been over powered by my colonies need to survive n forageā¦
