second hive body

[trackpacker02]

First let me say that this is a great web site. I'm new to bee keeping and you have helped a lot.
This is my second year and I'm still full of questions.I started last year with two packages of Italians. The first problem I had was that 3\4
of one hive went into the other. Great for that one but the smaller one ended up with to few bees to support the queen and brood and ended up dying. First lesson learned.
I was called to remove a swarm from town so I'm back to two hives. Last fall I took a chance and bought three hives full of Buckfast bees off A friend who has had some health problems.
All 5 survived the winter and doing fine.
Now back to my question. On my stonger hives I was thinking about adding another deep to alow more room. Is it ok to put one full of foundation under the full one or does it go on top?
I'm using deeps for brood and mediums for honey

[Sundance]

I personally put the boxes on top. Mainly cuz I'm lazy. Open the bottom boxes brood up with 3 or 4 (depending on how strong they are) frames from the existing bottom box and place them in the middle of the newly installed top box. Just my opinion, as always there are many other ways (all good or better).

Don't forget you can balance colinies by moving brood frames from one to the other (balancing).

[FordGuy]

there has been some discussion on this in my "bottom supering..." thread.

I have been reading Walt Wright's articles and he mentioned something which thus far has not factored into our equation - waxmaking temperature. My interpretation of what he wrote is that waxmaker bees like a certain temperature to build wax/draw comb. Heat rises. It may be that the heat rising off the cluster onto the foundation frames above aids in raising the area to this temperature. If you put foundation on the bottom, it may or may not rise to this temperature depending on the time of year, or perhaps the number of bees covering the foundation.

[iddee]

I always top super with foundation. Sometimes I will bottom super with drawn comb, for special circumstances.

[Dan Williamson]

>>I always top super with foundation.

And now you get the other side:

I usually bottom super with foundation. They seem to draw it quicker for me as it is right above the broodnest.

Once again, ask 2 beekeepers and you get how many different responses? :D

[iddee]

Two questions deserve two answers. Where is the bottom? On the bottom board or on top of the broodnest? I don't use excluders, so the bottom is on the bottom board. Sounds like at Dan's house the bottom is on top of the broodnest.
Many people super below the top super to make them cap the top super for harvesting, while using the one below for processing. Many others believe they will draw out faster if it is put between two boxes because they will close up an open area in the hive before expanding.

[Michael Bush]

>I personally put the boxes on top. Mainly cuz I'm lazy.

Me too. I'd add them on top of the other brood box.

[Dan Williamson]

>>Sounds like at Dan's house the bottom is on top of the broodnest.

Guess I should have been more clear what I meant. When I refer to supering up, I am refering to adding honey supers. If I had read the earlier post more closely I would have realized he was asking in relation to the brood area not honey supers. :D Thanks for straightening me out idee! smile.gif

That said. I use excluders so I think of my hive in two parts. Brood, Honey. I would add the foundation for the brood chamber directly above your current brood chamber. If I were adding a honey super with foundation I would put it in the same place just separated from the brood area by an excluder. When adding drawn comb to to honey supers I just stack em up.

My experience is that they seem to draw any foundation more quickly when it is directly above the brood nest.

When I've added plastic foundation in honey supers on top of other partially filled honey super during a light flow they were more inclined to back fill the brood nest. When I added that foundation directly over the brood nest with an excluder under it they drew it out even in a light flow and were less likely in that scenario to crowd the broodnest with honey.

Maybe the key there is that it is plastic I don't know just my observations. I have been on a comb drawing mission so it was worth the extra work. And extra work it definately is.

[Sundance]

Dan your comments make sense for sure. If I had only a couple of colonies I would do it for sure.

[trackpacker02]

Thanks for all the input, still unsure if I want to go with two deeps for brood. Still waying the pros and cons. If I do I'll put it on top of the other brood box, and next year rotate these?

[Mike Gillmore]

How many of your colonies have only 1 deep for brood?

[iddee]

Dan, I've seen this on here before.This isn't the first time I have asked, where is the bottom? Different people look at it different ways. As I said above, they will always fill in an empty area within the hive before expanding the hive. Meaning they will move into a box that separates the brood and honey before moving into one on the top or very bottom.

[trackpacker02]

Four of my colonies were wintered with one deep for brood and one medium full of honey . One colony witch has the Italians I left three supers and one deep . Simply because it was so full of bees last fall, and I didn't know how much they would need. The queen also moved up and used the the first medium and still is, as of yesterday.

[Mike Gillmore]

You may want to consider using 2 deep brood boxes per hive, plus supers. My Italians had about 14 or so frames of brood last season in the center of the 2 deeps and stores on the outside, plus plenty of bees in the supers above. Even if you add plenty of honey supers over 1 deep (with an excluder) you will probably still restrict "brood" space and end up with swarming colonies.
Most beekeepers in this part of Ohio use 2 deeps for brood. In the late summer they will pull all the supers off and let the bees backfill the 2 deeps for winter.
If you don't use a queen excluder then just make sure they have plenty of room for brood expansion in the spring.

[Walts-son-in-law]

Giving to Walt

[Walts-son-in-law]

Trackpacker 02

Would like to weigh in on this one for the lessons it contains.

The migration of one package to the other is not noted in the literature, but it happens. Lit. package hiving recommends doing it in the evening and stopping up the entry with green grass to keep them inside long enough to adjust. When the grass wilts and they can remove it, they are more likely to consider it home.

Packages with short travel times have not had time to endorse the foreign queen in the cage as a replacement for their own. If packages are hived in proximity, and the bees permitted to fly freely, they will gravitate to the hive containing the queen that “smells” most like Momma.

This scenario presupposes that bees can smell a queen in the air outside the hive. There are other, one time, anecdotal stories from removal experiences that support that opinion. If the bees can smell a queen outside, what does that do to congestion theory? The literature contends that limiting distribution of queen scent inside the hive causes swarming. Just not true!

The real question of this thread has no right answer. At this point in your season development, a deep of foundation added either above or below will cause more harm than good. Keeping in mind that the colonies do not have wax making capability now, let’s look at both possibilities:

If added below, the deep of foundation will be ignored until wax making starts at the beginning of the main flow. In the meantime, conditions are almost perfect for swarming.

If added above, they are separated from their overhead reserve in the medium. You still have some cold weather yet in OH. Swarm prevention by starvation is not a good answer. Adding deeps above their honey gains nothing.

If you do nothing expect swarms from all that wintered in good shape. Needless to say that swarming is better than starvation. Save those deeps of foundation to hive the swarms.

You can easily get that second deep drawn during the main flow. Insert it at the top of the brood nest and below honey supers. When filled and capped, its already in position for winter-feed.

Your best bet for swarm prevention is reversal of the two units at two week intervals through the swarm prep period. If you have additional medium drawn comb available, divide it into five parts, and add it at the top at the second reversal (when the medium comes back to the top). If you have as many mediums as 15 of drawn comb, you can checkerboard.


I’ll let MB plug in his recipe.