Help Needed! All brood and no honey...

[belt152]

Hi guys,

I was checking my hives this week and noticed a problem. They don't have any honey stores.

They are Russians and stated from three pound packages. I put them in a deep and when they filled out 7 frames I added a medium. Once they filled out another 7 I added a second medium. When they filled out another 7 I added another medium (for honey).

They had filled around 6 frames 1/2 full in the upper super but when i got to digging around there was no honey below this super. They had chimneyed their way to the top.

Can anyone tell me what to do? I thought about feeding but read this would keep the queen laying. The golden rod just started blooming and this is the last flow of the year.

Shouldn't the queen have slowed down laying with no honey stores in the hive? I have frame after frame of fresh eggs in the hives.

Any help is appreciated!!

Thanks,
Chris

[akaneo]

are they laying in the honey super also? Are there still brood in the deep?

If no then I say take off the super, move the deep to the top of the stack and start feeding. If they don't need the food then no harm but if they need it to store up then they need it.

Also without a layer of honey at the top the queen will keep moving up if you are not using and excluder. But if they are going gangbusters like you say then they must be getting and storing nectar someplace, three boxes of brood/eggs is a lot of food needed.

Richard

[tecumseh]

belt 152 ask:
Shouldn't the queen have slowed down laying with no honey stores in the hive?

tecumseh replies: some will not. some queens (I guess there should be some lesson for people here) will just keep reproducing until they starve. some races of queens are of course more likely to not know how to shut down egg laying than others.

If I had a weak hive I might take some capped brood from this hive to reduce (future) population, consolidate the unit where it was forced to expand horizontally and feed 2:1 (syrup) if you thought nothing was coming in the front door. 1:1 syrup is suppose to promote brood rearing and 2:1 syrup they are more likely to store.

[Michael Palmer]

They are Russians...I put them in a deep and when they filled out 7 frames I added a medium. Once they filled out another 7 I added a second medium. When they filled out another 7 I added another medium (for honey).

They had filled around 6 frames 1/2 full in the upper super but when i got to digging around there was no honey below this super. They had chimneyed their way to the top.

Can anyone tell me what to do?

So, your hive has 1 deep and 3 mediums. Good size for wintering here in VT. Not sure about VA. Russians are pretty conservative, and shut down when they need to. They winter with small clusters, and limited honey stores.

Maybe you don't have to do anything. Are there still undrawn frames of foundation in the supers? You could remove those and reduce the size of the hive to 1 deep and 2 mediums. Then, allow the bees to have the Goldenrod flow for winter. When the Goldenrod is starting to fade, feed until you have enough stores for winter.

[BjornBee]

(as MP commented) First, consolidate all your frames so you only have drawn comb (any honey and brood) in the boxes. Consolidate down to two boxes, a deep and a medium. They do not need more than this for winter.

Feed. You actually want brood going into September and October since these are the bees that will carry the hive through to spring.

This will allow them to re-arrange honey, brood, and anything brought into the hive in the proper place going into winter. You should do this now, and not later.

My last option for light hives, is to place a 25 pound block of fondant on the inner cover hole. You then place an empty box and then the top. I did this for hives coming out of pumpkin and watermelon last year in October, and 95% of hives that had almost nothing for honey stores, made it.

The fondant last year cost me $32 for a 50 pound block. (I split them in two) So I basically fed these hives and got them through winter on $16 with no jar, no filling feeders, no mess, etc.

I would feed syrup till perhaps October, then switch to a solid form of feed. I suggest stopping feeding with syrup going into cold weather as the moisture from the syrup is not good for bees, especially when you have open comb of hastily stores syrup.

Between feeding now, the fall flow, and slapping some fondant on the hives, I am confident that any hive can make it through winter.

[Ross]

As long as they have stores, most bees will produce brood on it until the weather cools. Take the honey away from them and they have to shut down. I would have probably held off on the supers until more of the current box was full. Two reasons, one is the chimney effect, two is the danger of SHB when the bees don't occupy the whole box.

[IndianaHoney]

I've noticed this problem with Russian bees. They shut down in a derth, and only rear a small amount of brood in a spring flow, then in a heavy summer flow they go nuts raising brood. All my russians have done this. Re-queen with a different race.

[BjornBee]

Russians had nothing to do with this. They did exactly what they were supposed to do. They filled out four boxes of comb, raised lots of brood, and worked their way to the top. In nature, they would of ran out of room, limited their expansion of comb, placed less comb, stored more honey and the queen would of been limited in her laying.

But the story goes like this.....

They filled out one box, a second was added, then a third, then a fourth (but even then, they stored 6 frames of honey). All without feeding. Anytime you keep placing boxes above a brood chamber, the bees, if healthy and resources allow, will continue to build upwards. And the placing of these additional boxes played into this.

What should of happened was the bees should of been fed from the beginning. The bees should of been given no more than what the brood chamber should of been, that being 2 boxes. Then, and only then, when the brood chamber was filled and heavy with stored honey, should any further boxes been offered. The first year goal is always to get the hive to a point where they are built up enough to make it through the first winter. But this colony was not fed, given more extra foundation to draw, which they did, and the queen's expansion was dictated by placing extra boxes on top.

I can systematically make bees draw comb in nuc production by adding frames, expansion at key times, and allowing the queen to just lay unlimited amounts as I swap frames out. And in these circumstances, little honey is ever stored. In essence, this is about what happened here.

That's not a Russian thing. That's a beekeeper management thing.

[belt152]

Hi Guys,

Thank you so much for the answers.

From all the replies so far I'm planning on consolidating the drawn frames downward replacing the empty ones. This should free up the upper most super.

My question now is should I begin feeding a 2:1 mixture now? The Goldenrod (along with some Aster) is starting to bloom and it looks like it should be a good to great flow. I use hive-top feeders. Would it be OK to feed while the flow is going?

As BjornBee stated the problem is all keeper related and nothing to do with the bees. I'm only a second year beek and used to the "when they draw out 7 frames add another box" method. Now I realize they just chimney and made no stores is the outer frames.

Again, Thank You guys for the help.

What a Great Hobby!!