Honeybound

[rickman]

Hello,

The upper brood box in my hive is very full of honey, with a small amount of open cells in the middle of 3 or 4 of the center frames. How do I properly take care of this situation?

Rick

[Michael Bush]

It depends on what you have available. The best solution is replace a few of the frames of just honey with some already drawn comb that you extracted previously. If you don't have that, then new foundation is better than nothing. If you replace it with the drawn comb the queen can lay in it almost immediately (the bees will clean it out really well first). If you don't have drawn comb and you have to put in frames with just foundation, then it will take several days to draw enough for the queen to lay. And then only if there is a honey flow. If there's a dearth you'll have to feed them to get them to draw comb.

[rickman]

Thanks for the reply Michael.

I will have to use new foundation. Should I remove two frames of just honey from the outside and slide the rest over and place the new frames in the center.

Rick

[Michael Bush]

I always stagger the new foundation between drawn combs, preferable really nice straight comb. That way the tend to draw the new one to fit the space in between. They will draw it out no matter where you put them, but they will do it sooner and straighter if they are between drawn comb.

[rickman]

Thanks for the good info Michael. I'll take care of that next time I go into my hive. I'm going to post another question about requeening. Maybe you can help me with that.

Rick