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Back filled brood

PostPosted:22 Jul 2019, 18:33
by Gazz
One of my hives swarmed on June 30th I checked today and no queen laying yet. one brood box has been completely filled with stores. And one is going that way. They have a super of foundation above the brood but opted to fill the brood box first I don’t have any drawn brood frames or super frames l.

So my question is how do I empty some of these frames? I don’t have an extractor for brood frames

Re: Back filled brood

PostPosted:22 Jul 2019, 19:15
by AdamD
Hi Gazz, welcome to the forum.

If your colony swarmed on 30th June, let's assume that there was a just sealed queencell at that time. She would have emerged 8 days later, say 8th July and would need, say 5 or 6 days before she was mature enough to mate, so possibly she would be able to fly from about 14th July. [If you did not cut down queencells to one and left them to it, then a later queen could be present (by a few days)]. If the weather has been good in your parts since then, I would expect that she would be laying from around now as it takes 2 or more days after mating for her to start to lay. In a full colony it takes longer for her to start. As she matures after laying the bees will start to make a space for her to lay eggs in; I would not be worried that she has some restricted space as they WILL want her to lay. However you could take the opportunity to harvest some honey in some form of crush and strain method and put in a couple of frames of foundation to give the bees some space. Or take the queen excluder off for a few days until they start to draw comb in the super. The risk of this is that the queen , if present, may start to lay up there if you leave the excluder off for too long.

Re: Back filled brood

PostPosted:22 Jul 2019, 20:08
by Caroline
Hello Gazz, I'm with Adam on this one, if the super is all foundation then remove the Q/Ex for a few days, this usually encourages the bees to move up and start working the super frames.

Re: Back filled brood

PostPosted:22 Jul 2019, 20:46
by Gazz
There’s already 3 supers on there 2 filled and ready for take off on the weekend one partly filled so don’t think they will mind moving into the super.

Unfortunately I’ve just realised a bit of a rookie mistake that I put the brood box on top of the supers while inspecting so hopefully she isn’t now above the excluder! But hay hoe one problem at a time :lol:

Re: Back filled brood

PostPosted:22 Jul 2019, 20:49
by Gazz
May just do as you said Adam but I’ll pull out a frame or 2 and put some foundation in there and I can always keep the frames in storage for some nucs next year

Re: Back filled brood

PostPosted:22 Jul 2019, 23:25
by Patrick
Gazz, newly emerged virgins are still slender after mating and ftequently get through queen excluders. She may well be up and laying in the supers no fault of yours.

If you find eggs in s super frame and are not confident about finding unmarked queens simply shake ALL the bees on the super frames back in the brood chamber - then you know she will be with them. Queen excluder back on and cross fingers she is now in lay and too big to get back up again.

It’s happened to me twice this year.