Time for a super or brood box?

[YETI]

Hi All,
I am in my second year of beekeeping. The colony that I had last year didn't make it due to various reasons but I think it wasn't a strong colony going into winter as I got them late in the season. This year I started early in the season and have survived a swarm! A new queen was raised and fingers crossed all is looking good.

I have a National hive and have 2 frames undrawn, 2 full of honey/stores and the rest with brood in at all stages.
My question is should I put on a super or brood box? I am worried that the Queen will run out of space to lay but I am equally worried that they won;t have enough stores going into winter.

Any advice would be most welcome! Thank you!

[Patrick]

Hi Yeti

Welcome to the Forum! Well done on your honesty on admitting losing your first colony - its quite common ( it happened to me as well ) and there can be many reasons why it can happen. The important thing is you got back in the game and have got yourself sorted. The first swarm attempt is always a bit of a gulp moment isn't it?

At this stage in the year most colonies will usually be trying to rebuild after swarming to survive winter and those that have not swarmed may be past their peak. In many locations the main summer nectar flow will have finished and the queens egg laying rate will be declining (around here many queens have actually gone off lay after the bramble finished). Many of the adult bees will be dying off. You cannot expect at this stage of the year in most locations for bees to bring in enough nectar to sustain themselves, raise young bees to overwinter and also amass a surplus to overwinter a colony on. If you have a natural nectar flow from say Himalyan balsam you are okay but keep an eye on those two frames of stores, you may need to feed them before long, then again later on with the big winter feed - I would work on about 3 gallons of syrup which is about 10kg of sugar.

You will hear you cannot overwinter a colony on a single National brood box as it is too small for sufficient stores. With normal hybrid bees it is untrue and I have done it many times over many years, so don't feel obliged to use multiple boxes. I personally have limited time for the brood and a half system but it still has many advocates. I am a fan of overwintering on double brood boxes for many reasons. You may not need to yet, but Its a good way of moving bees off older combs as they move up over winter and by spring will be in the upper box and you can take away the lower one of old combs underneath and clean and re-wax them.

[Jim Norfolk]

Can I add a simple suggestion. You have 2 undrawn frames and two with stores that would leave 7 of brood. The first step would be to move the two frames of stores to the outside and the undrawen frames in next to the outermost brood frames. That will at least give the bees the opportunity to draw the wax if they need to. However it is unlikely that they will do so unless there is some income and as Patrick suggests you will need to feed at some stage. Now the weather has cooled a bit it would be worth treating for Varroa. I still prefer Apiguard.

[AdamD]

The queen will tend to reduce egg laying at this time of year rather than increase the brood area so you will expect to see the brood area reduce. As Jim suggests, in the first instance I would treat for varroa and get the frames drawn with syrup feeding over the next few weeks (there's NO income at the moment for my bees). I would anticipate that the brood nest will reduce in size and work down the comb as you feed the colony. Also see the thread on under-supering. It's probably a big ask to get the colony to fully draw a second brood box.
(Do you have drawn super comb?)

[YETI]

Thank you all for your replies! They are all greatly appreciated. I am learning new things every day!

I will swap over the frames with stores with the undrawn ones. I will certainly keep an eye on their stores and look at feeding and treating them for varroa.

Thanks again!

[Patrick]

Cheers Yeti - let us know how you get on with the feeding. Any ideas on what you might use to treat varroa?

Adam makes a good point about a second brood box and the issue of getting it drawn out - if you only have foundation in a second brood chamber, then you need plenty of underemployed bees and to trickle feed syrup to encourage them to draw out combs. If you just give them a couple of gallons in a rapid feeder they are just as likely to cram it into the original broodbox and limit the queens laying space.

I usually have brood boxes with already drawn comb and just plonk them on top, but in your second year you may not be there quite yet. We are often advised to use brood boxes as supers at the start of the year to get combs drawn but they are jolly heavy to lift about if they are full of honey.

But being a Yeti, strength is unlikely to an issue in your case

[YETI]

Thanks Patrick. Sometimes I wish I was a Yeti

I did feed them after the swarm and stopped a couple of weeks ago as the flow seemed good. I will commence feeding on Sunday when I do the inspection.

Yep you're right, I'm not there yet with another brood box of drawn comb. Is it me or is the 'first' year or years when starting on new foundation the hardest in terms of getting things set up?

The varroa treatment that I have is Thymovar. I have just been reading the instructions about feeding them and using the strips. I will need to keep an eye out on the temperatures for it's effectiveness.

Thanks again!