Is this a big NO NO

[IBEEME]

I have 4 hive started from Nuc's this spring 3 are doing very well. Hive #1 Superceded there queen about 5 weeks ago. New queen show a great pattern and the hive should be building up well. But this one hive has refused to move into the 3rd box, has 2 deeps filled with honey and brood. I did a powdered sugar on all hives Tuesday and when I placed this hive back together I thought I would try an experiment and placed box #3 in between the 2 deeps to try and stimulate comb building in this box. On Wednesday afternoon I noticed the girls were hauling out the drones. Should I put the 2 deeps back the way they were with the medium on top? These hives are all on Pierco foundation. Hive #2 has 2 deeps and one medium with honey and built comb in another medium that was installed. Hives 3 and 4 have built comb in about half of their 3rd box.

[iddee]

I don't know if it is right or wrong, but that is exactly what I would have done. I would leave it that way until the top hive body is full and capped if they don't draw the super before that. If they draw 3 or more frames in the super, you can switch back and they should finish it fine. Some colonies are just reluctant to start new boxes.

[ScadsOBees]

Usually the drones are hauled out in a dearth (or fall, and that ain't quite yet...).

Do you have a honeyflow going on? If not then they won't draw out the foundation well or at all. And there might have been a brood raising break with the supercedure and you don't have the right ages of bees yet to maximize comb drawning.

Is the pierco wax coated? If not that could be a problem in a slow honeyflow.

It is also possible (I don't know how possible) that by separating the brood nest like that they are raising another queen in the box without a queen.

I'd probably put them back the way they were. It might help to bait them up into the honey super by taking a drawn or partially drawn super frame from one of the other hives.

-rick

[IBEEME]

I would say that it is not a dearth but the flow has slowed. Yes the pierco is wax coated and it was sprayed with 1:1 before it was placed on the hive. The other 3 hives are building comb as I write this. My thought when I placed the medium between the 2 deeps was that maybe there was a honey band in the 2nd deep that they did not wish to cross, as very few bees were even venturing into the top medium hive body. My hope was that this would force them to build comb as they would need to pass through it to get into brood chamber #2 that is now seperated from the bottom brood chamber by the medium. The first time that I noticed them kicking out drones was a week before they superceded the queen.

[IBEEME]

Some times bees just make you :confused:

[drobbins]

I did the same thing last year (my first) nd it worked fine
I don't think you'd want to do it if the weather was cooler but at this time of year I would think it would work well
they don't like empty space in the middle of the hive
keep us posted on how it goes

on the flip side, Rick's comment on using some drawn frames to bait em up into a box also works well

Dave

[IBEEME]

I'll let it go as is for 2 weeks and then take a look see, I shall try and report back then. Unless some one can convince me to put it back the other way. smile.gif

[IBEEME]

Up date: I checked this hive after 2 weeks without disturbing them. What I found was that they had started to build comb on 2 frames but only right around the center of the box. I know that the flow has slowed way down and that the golden rod will be starting around the middle of August. I did extract one supper of honey from the strongest hive last night. I'm thinking I'll pull the supper that they don't want to draw out and place this drawn supper on the top. Oh by the way now I know why there is all the talk about that first honey harvest. This honey is very light in color and has that first time harvest flavor that can not compare to the store bought honey smile.gif