Bees not drawing comb, worth concern?

[artic]

I hived a 4 frame Nuc of blue-Russian bees on April 23, and today the 11<sup>th</sup> day after, I did my first heavy-duty inspection. Almost everything looks well, I found the queen, found brood, etc. The bees however don’t appear not bee drawing any comb, is this a problem, and if so how might I correct it?

The foundation I added is standard issue deep body, crimped wire beeswax. The comb from the Nuc was a mix of wax and plastic foundation. I’ve been feeding my bees 1:1 syrup (with added essential oils) in a hive top feeder (had to add a hardware cloth ladder to encourage usage). The syrup is being taken very slowly; there may be two to three bees in the feeder at a time. The four frames that I do have drawn three are completely covered in bees, two of which are nearly completely filled with capped and uncapped brood, I’m still working on spotting eggs, but I did not lift one frame as my smoker went out. One filled frame has spotty pollen, and the others are mostly empty with sparse collections of nectar, nothing capped. I have also been attempting to feed a pollen substitute, which they have not touched, but they are now bringing in pollen so nothing to worry about. I have a grease patty w/ salt and essential oil in place that they have not touched.

Also, on my first inspection I lightly sprayed the un-drawn frames with 1:1 syrup with essential oils (home made HBH), as per recommended to boost acceptance and drawing of wax, obviously it did not seem to work.

I also got my first bee sting, top of middle finder on right hand, 15 min and no swelling or real pain yet, does this mean I am officially a beekeeper now smile.gif ?

[power napper]

You are a pro now!!! enjoy.

[carbide]

Artic,

When I first started beekeeping, the oldtimer I bought my first two hives off of told me to put a handful of marbles in my pocket and every time I got stung to throw one of the marbles away. When I had lost all of my marbles I would then be considered a beekeeper.

[artic]

My latest conclusion is that I may have improperly installed the frames from the Nuc causing them to be bound by a honey frame to an area of their original four drawn out combs. Yesterday, I re-arranged the combs, placing the brood comb in the middle of the hive body between frames of foundation. I also moved the honeycomb to a far edge of the hive. When I did this, I also noticed behind the frame that I did not move (due to the smoker going dead and not wanting any more stings) the bees were actually drawing a small amount of burr comb on the side of the hive body parallel to and facing the unmoved frame. I left it there in hopes that they would now draw out the foundation facing it, in retrospect however I hope they don’t attach it to the foundation making it impossible to move with out damaging it. Hopefully this move was for the better, I’ll check again in a week or so to see if there is any progress.

[scsasdsa]

it sounds as if the bees are busy raising brood and as the new bees emerge there will be more bees to do the work more comb will get drawn.

[Curry]

artic- I wonder if they don't like the essential oils in the 1:1 (ie too much). You could try giving them a sandwich baggie of 1:1 without oils to see if that's the problem. The bees won't make new wax until a pretty good flow is on... but they should at least be taking the 1:1 right now.

[artic]

My hive top feeder is a plastic insert that has two separate reservoirs. As an experiment I filled both sides, but only added the essential oil mixture to one. The few bees that are in the feeder show a preference to the essential oil side, by not feeding from the un-treated syrup. (Another indication is that there are only dead bees floating in the essential oil side, though not many). So I don’t think their lack of drawing comb is a direct result of a dislike of essential oils in their feed.

This evening I had a boardman entrance feeder delivered, that I will attach tomorrow, and see if that affects anything. As per the general concern about keeping it filled, that should not be a problem as I have just the one hive and it is in my backyard.