mega brood

[ottawabee]

looking for comments on the brood pattern in a topbar started from a nuc this year.

I have a hive of Russians from a local hygenic breeder in Ontario. These bees have established a local reputation for explosive growth from a very modest start. I would now agree. This hive was a very modest 4 bar nuc (3 brood, 1 honey) that has now filled a 30 bar topbar of deep lang frame dimensions. This hive was started at the end of May, 4 weeks after the other topbars! So far so good, the only pain being her majesty has laid the bottom half of each frame as the hive grew from the core brood area. We had to harvest a couple of bars last weekend to give space, which gave us a good excuse to excise some drone brood, while getting a couple half bars of very nice honey.

My other topbars are much more conventional- the core brood area is surrounded by bars of pure honey.

Is there anything I could have done (aside from a queen excluder), to encourage a different hive pattern from the Russians? or are they just too prolific?

A side note: although the sample size is too small to be statistically significant, I am observing with interest the fact that the top bar with regular lang deep frames with foundation, is actually behind in hive growth the other two topbars that simply had plain bars (22 frames of comb vs 30 frames). All of the top bars were started with 4 frame nucs and grown to a dozen or so frames by injecting an empty bar/frame adjacent to the brood nest weekly. After that the girls took over.

We have had a very friendly weather pattern this year with warm temperatures and a healthy abundance of rain. 4 of 6 nucs will yield 50-75lbs of honey in addition to 2 full deeps of core hive.

[Sasha]

All my hives,tbh and langs have this year made brood like mad.I have plenty of bees,but almost no honey?
I cant understand that.I have split all my langs,but the splits were more like 3-4 frames,from each lang hive three boxes deep.Seems to me that the unlimited broodnest plan is definitely not working for me.On top of that naturall cell project which involves puting empty frames had also cost me honey.On top of that if I want to leave the little amount of honey that my colonies have instead of feeding them with sugar,that is also costing me honey,in the end I have extracted 25 kg of honey from 15 colonies,that is not much I think.
Next year there will definitely be queen exluders in my hives both tbh and langs.

[pcooley]

I've been having the same problem with my hives. My original package filled a 24 bar TBH by the end of May, and then it started swarming. I now have four hives, and the original swarm has almost filled a 33 bar hive with the same pattern of mostly brood. I've been seeing some queen cups, but no queen cells yet, so I'm hoping they won't swarm this late in the year.

Lots of bees but not much harvestable honey. Though at this point, it might be a good idea to start eating brood.

[Beewildered]

My tbh has the same brood pattern in a 24 bar hive. I did supper it 2 weeks ago and they are still filling it, but I haven't seen any new brood in it. From the side window in the body, it looks like the combs may be 1/3 to 1/2 capped honey and the rest brood and nectar. I did harvest one nearly completely capped honey comb last week from the body, my only comb like that, just to keep giving them room. It's been a very dry year here. Could that be playing a role?

My Lang from a swarm in Apr, however, is doing great and I'll be extracting 2 mediums this weekend. smile.gif

[Hook]

Sasha said:"Seems to me that the unlimited broodnest plan is definitely not working for me."

Did not work for me either. I did that one year, had no honey, and a deep box full of honey in the spring. I use 2 deeps, and harvest the supers as I go during the season. It has worked very well for me.

[Sasha]

Hook:
Did not work for me either. I did that one year, had no honey, and a deep box full of honey in the spring. I use 2 deeps, and harvest the supers as I go during the season. It has worked very well for me.


Hello Dale,can you explain me please I didnt understand you well,do you use queen excluders now?
Also I wanted to thank you ,I have made a oxalic acid evaporator somewhat simmilar to your gadget.I have treated my hives today.Gotta few questions related to that,but will move to other forume to ask them