Encouraging queen with open brood nest

[Tillie]

This is my second year of beekeeping. Last year my two hives were on LC. I started two additional hives from nucs this year. I put the four frames from the nucs in the center of a deep and put SC starter strip frames on either side. The bees built it out just fine.

Then I added a medium above and put all starter strip SC frames. The bees built crazy comb bridging between frames. I cut it out or moved it over and last week the comb building looked like it was going better. I noticed that all the frames in the center were full of uncapped honey. There didn't seem to be any room for brood in the center. They had drawn all but the last two frames and used them for honey.

If the situation is the same when I go into the hives tomorrow (not today, it's raining), I would like to put another medium box on this hive and move some of the honey filled frames in the center of the first medium up to the new box, substituting SC starter strip frames in the box below.

1. Is this a good plan?
2. Should I leave frames of honey between the starter strip frames?
3. I was thinking of moving in three SC starter strip frames and moving three honey frames up into the new medium - is that a good number to start with?

Thanks for your help,

Linda T confused in Atlanta

[Michael Bush]

>1. Is this a good plan?

It's ok.

>2. Should I leave frames of honey between the starter strip frames?

If it's nice straight CAPPED honey comb, sure. If not they will usually draw out the uncapped deeper and fill the gap without drawing the starter strips at all.

>3. I was thinking of moving in three SC starter strip frames and moving three honey frames up into the new medium - is that a good number to start with?

The number isn't really important.

Here are my concerns. You have messed up (cross combed) combs in the hive. If the queen decides to lay in them you really can't do much. I'd sort through that and harvest whatever is too crooked to straighten out and straighten out what you can. Crooked combs begat more crooked combs and you need some straight ones.

Make sure you don't spread the bees too thin. If they are booming and filling the space, adding more space is needed. If the brood nest is packed and there are a lot of bees you can expand the brood nest. If the cluster is small and sparse then they don't need more room in the brood nest yet, so I'd leave that alone and they probably don't need more room if they aren't filling the room with bees and stores.

I don't know where your hive is in relation to popluation etc., I'm just saying you need to consider that.