Do bees move caped honey around inside the hive?

[Jerry Kinder]

Do bees move caped honey around inside the hive? At the time of the first full inspection of my one deep hive (a week ago), I found two frames that were full of caped honey. I was feeding the bee sugar water during the time that this was laid down so the honey is probably just sugar water. Since the one deep hive was fully drawn out and loaded with brood:D, I added another deep and moved 5 frames up to the center of the top box and I have added honey super with an excluder. I also quit feeding the hive. I just wanted to know if the sugar water honey will be moved up to the honey supers. I put the honey filled frames in the top brood box but didn’t push them to the sides (should I?). Also, I am not seeing a lot of action above the queen excluder in the super, just a few bees walking around (is this normal?).

[hsbcapt]

I too had an excluder and no action in the super. I removed the excluder and they promply moved up . Some say its a honey excluder . I'm still not sure to use or not. Just my second year with them though.

[clarkfarm]

Re issue of super above excluder: my bee guru says that is you are using foundation as opposed to drawn comb above the excluder, the bees are likely to ignore the super. His advice to me was to put the super on for a few days and when the bees had gone into the super in reasonable numbers, put the excluder in then. Queen is apparently unlikely to move up that fast because the comb is not drawn sufficiently after such a short time.

Also if you are using foundation, it sometimes helps to spray it lightly with sugar syrup to get the bees started drawing comb.

[Joseph Clemens]

I made my own bottom boards, without the "toad banquet slot" or any other lower openings, then I place a queen excluder across the top of the brood nest, place an entrance shim on top of the queen excluder, then stack my honey supers above that, even creating additional entrances, during the honeyflow, by sliding each honey super back to create an entrance slot. Last season was the first time I'd done this and it was a wonderful success. The bees have free access to the honey supers, but must pass through the queen excluder in order to access the brood nest. I do leave a small opening below the excluder where drones can come and go.

[Jerry Kinder]

Thanks, I forgot about both of those:doh:. I will spray the frames with sugar water this afternoon and add an opening with shims. The days are getting hot here and the bees will probably like the added ventilation. Do you think adding a little honey to the sugar water will help?

[tecumseh]

jerry question:
Do bees move caped honey around inside the hive?

tecumseh:
perhaps a bit. with some encouragement from you they can be forced to move quite a bit of honey. one old strategy for stimulating bees (in the spring time) was to scratch a box of capped honey and place this directly on the bottom board with the brood nest above. the hive does not like this location for honey storage so they will move the honey to a place where it is in a more of defendable location. the entire process simulates a flow (with no flow coming in).

on most occasion I suspect the bees move stuff (pollen or honey) rarely. they are much more likely to use resources rather than waste their energy moving resources.

in regards to queen excluder I agree fully with joseph clemens. an excluder results, like any tool, is much about how it is used.

[chillardbee]

I have noticed in early spring during the warmer days bees will bring honey to the brooding area of the hive from the outside where the capped honey is. So yes they can move it.

[Michael Palmer]

[COLOR="Red"]Do bees move caped honey around inside the hive

No. They have to uncap it first. :-)

[GRIMBEE]

I made my own bottom boards, without the "toad banquet slot" or any other lower openings,

LOL now thats funny:lpf: