first year keeper, couple questions

[rache]

hi folks, i was hoping for a little input, since this is my first season with bees and every time i go out to the hive, they're doing something new.

i hived a package just under six weeks ago, and put the second deep on last week. i opened it up today, and there are lots of bees working up top, with drawn comb and honey on the innermost four or so frames. there were no eggs or larvae.

i only pulled the outermost frame on the bottom deep, just to check on things, and it has everything from eggs to capped brood. is it a good idea to swap a couple of honey frames from the top with a couple of brood frames from the bottom, to get things moving up there?

i plan to go to nine frames, and i know they have to draw out all ten before the spacers go in, but do i have to wait and space both deeps at the same time, or can i space the bottom one separately, now that it's full?

the other thing i've noticed is that there has been no drone brood yet, is this normal?

i was also wondering about feeding; i've heard so many different things that i don't know what to think anymore. i took the beekeeping short course at rutgers back in april, and they told us that we were going to have to feed straight through the first summer, and to keep the syrup on even if the bees didn't take it. i've seen many people online say not to feed unless absolutely necessary, and i'm wondering why not. i've also read that a little vinegar in the syrup is good, but they never mentioned that in class. opinions?

thanks for the help.

[Ross]

I would leave them alone. If they are drawing and storing honey in the upper box, then everything is on schedule. If you have nectar coming in and comb being drawn, you shouldn't need to feed. Watch for a dearth and feed then. I wouldn't go nine frames in the lower box. It is a brood box and brood comb doesn't need to be fatter, and it won't anyway. You're really just giving up a frame of brood. You can go nine in the super when they are all mostly drawn but before they are capped.

[tecumseh]

rache ask:
the other thing i've noticed is that there has been no drone brood yet, is this normal?

tecumseh replies:
well at least it is not abnormal. which is to say some hives will begin rearing drones much earlier and in much greater numbers than others.

then rache adds:
and they told us that we were going to have to feed straight through the first summer

tecumseh replies:
if you had a good deal of experience streched over several season then this advice would be worthless. like ross suggested, once you can recognize the ups and downs of the nectar flow then you will KNOW when to feed and when not to feed.

I would disagree with ross in regards to the number of frames to use in the bottom brood box. for myself this decision is based on two concerns... 1) ease of removing first frames when you inspect hive and 2) increased ventilation.

like ross I would suggest that when everything is going well just stand out of the way and add a box from time to time.

good luck....

[Michael Bush]

>is it a good idea to swap a couple of honey frames from the top with a couple of brood frames from the bottom, to get things moving up there?

I'd probably leave them be and let them work it out. If it's strong enough you can. If it's not it will stress them out.

>i plan to go to nine frames, and i know they have to draw out all ten before the spacers go in, but do i have to wait and space both deeps at the same time, or can i space the bottom one separately, now that it's full?

I'd shave the end bars and put 11 frames in. 10 is too far apart. 9 is a disaster. To much in and out. The combs won't be interchanable.

>the other thing i've noticed is that there has been no drone brood yet, is this normal?

As tecumseh says, it's not abnormal in a new package. Sometimes they make drone sooner, they all do it eventually. But they may not spend the resources now.

>i was also wondering about feeding; i've heard so many different things that i don't know what to think anymore. i took the beekeeping short course at rutgers back in april, and they told us that we were going to have to feed straight through the first summer, and to keep the syrup on even if the bees didn't take it. i've seen many people online say not to feed unless absolutely necessary, and i'm wondering why not.

It's not a matter of "absolutely" necessary, but gahter nectar is what bees do. You should let them. The problem with overfeeding is the brood nest can get clogged and a package, that otherwise would never swarm, may swarm. If you have a reason to feed, do. If there's a flow, don't.

>i've also read that a little vinegar in the syrup is good, but they never mentioned that in class. opinions?

I've played with such things. My preference is not to feed. If I have to feed, my preference is honey. If I have to feed syrup, my preference is 2:1 so it will keep better. I've tried ascorbic acid and it kept longer but eventually got a red mold in it. Without it, it gets a black mold in it. I haven't tried the vinegar but would guess it will be similar results.

[rache]

thanks for the replies. could you clarify a bit what you mean about nine frames not being interchangeable? i have deep hive bodies and i'll be using medium supers, so the deep frames would only be interchangeable with each other, and if both boxes are nine-frame, where would the problem be? (or maybe i just misread what you mean?)

one of the main reasons i'm planning to go to nine is that the bottom box is already messed up. i didn't realize that when i jammed the queen cage in there it would totally mess up the spacing; when i opened the hive to check that she was out, they'd built a full comb in that extra space (beautiful thing, i hated to rip it out...) and they've been goofed up ever since. the centermost frames are still too widely-spaced, but they've drawn the comb out to fill it, so i can't mash them back tightly, and the outermost frames are jammed as close together as they can go, and i can barely get them in there. i hoped that a nine-frame layout would even things up a bit, and make removal and replacement less of a hassle.

and now that i mention it, what *is* the proper way to get a queen cage in there? the guy who gave me my package was very careful to go over the procedure, and emphasized that the screen side of the cage shouldn't be against the frame, but he never said anything about what that would do to the spacing.

[Ross]

I would fix it now. If they have comb too wide and it doesn't have brood, scrape it back a little. I find if I go ahead and force the frames together, the bees get the message and clean it up. Alternatively, move the fat frames up to the upper box where you want 9 frames, and put empties (pushed tightly together) in their place. Finally, you can rotate the middle frames to the outside and push things as tightly together as possible. When I put in a queen cage, I mash it into a comb so that I can maintain almost normal spacing, maybe slightly wider but not much. It only messes up a small area of the comb and the bees fix it quickly when you pull the cage out.

[rache]

all the comb in the bottom box has brood, from the fattest inner combs to the thinnest outer ones. the bees seem to be doing great, it's me that can't manage to get the **** frames in and out (and i'm so paranoid about squashing iris (uh, the queen... all keepers name their queens and drag their families to home depot to choose exactly the shade of lavendar paint that she would like best, right?) or iris juniors that it takes forever to get them back in.

[Michael Bush]

>could you clarify a bit what you mean about nine frames not being interchangeable?

Brood comb on standard sized cell foundation will be 22.5mm thick. Standard spacing is 35mm. That leaves 12.5mm space between the comb surfaces. A standard beespace is 9.5mm (3/8") leaving an excess of 3mm. If you space it out to 9 frames you'll be at 40.5mm spacing which will add 5.5mm to the 12.5mm we had, making it 16mm. This is an excess of 6.5mm (1/4"). The honey comb will protrude from one side that extra 1/4" in odd unpredictable places. Moving that comb with the protruding honey to another position may block the emergence of some brood in that location. A natural brood nest is spaced 32mm (1 1/4"). Sometimes it's as small as 30mm. At 32mm you'll get less drone comb, more combs of brood and less stress on the bees.

The short version is that at 11 frames spacing you'll have very flat comb surfaces. At 9 frames you have very uneven comb surfaces. These uneven comb surfaces are why I'm saying they are not interchanable anymore.

> i have deep hive bodies and i'll be using medium supers, so the deep frames would only be interchangeable with each other, and if both boxes are nine-frame, where would the problem be? (or maybe i just misread what you mean?)

>one of the main reasons i'm planning to go to nine is that the bottom box is already messed up. i didn't realize that when i jammed the queen cage in there it would totally mess up the spacing; when i opened the hive to check that she was out, they'd built a full comb in that extra space (beautiful thing, i hated to rip it out...) and they've been goofed up ever since. the centermost frames are still too widely-spaced, but they've drawn the comb out to fill it, so i can't mash them back tightly, and the outermost frames are jammed as close together as they can go, and i can barely get them in there. i hoped that a nine-frame layout would even things up a bit, and make removal and replacement less of a hassle.

But it will contriubute to more of the unevenness. I'd live with some of it by spacing them what you have to but I'd crowd them as much as you can. Also leave them in the orginal order so the ins and outs match.


and now that i mention it, what *is* the proper way to get a queen cage in there? the guy who gave me my package was very careful to go over the procedure, and emphasized that the screen side of the cage shouldn't be against the frame, but he never said anything about what that would do to the spacing.

[Michael Bush]

A follower board will help if you have an odd space and you want to improve removing the frames. Just cut it out of 1/4" luan plywood in the shape of a frame and put one in or one at both ends if you have the room. It's better than 9 frame spacing and you still have nine tight frames in the box and you can remove the followers to get the first frame out.

With 11 I really don't have this problem much since the combs tend to be straight.

[rache]

thanks for the ideas. the follower board suggestion sounds reasonable, especially for the top box, which hasn't been screwed up yet.