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How to Regress, get brood on 1 1/4" bars and remove plastic foundation

3K views 7 replies 4 participants last post by  Sam-Smith 
#1 ·
Here's the situation:

I've posted pieces of it in other threads, but here's the whole picture.

I got two 4 frame nucs and was rushing to finish building the hives. They came on plastic foundation. I ended up doing a chop and crop and installing them with eight 1 1/2" top bars (because I read that comb on foundation is too deep for 1 1/4") and the follower board, planning to finish the rest of the bars and revisit the hive within a few days.

As luck would have it, I didn't get back for two weeks. When I did, the hives were JAMMED with bees, and had drawn out 7 3/4 of the 8 bars of comb. There were a lot of bees and a lot of capped brood.

I put a 1 1/4" bar between each of the existing, drawn out 1 1/2" bars, leaving the one comb that wasn't quite finished on the end away from the door. I am operating with end entrances.

Under close observation ( I have glass in the side and hives right beside the window of my house) the bees appear to be very busy. They have been festooning in the empty areas between the drawn comb, and have pretty much abandoned the 3/4 drawn one (which had no brood in it) for the time being. I have seen no dead brood in front of the hive. As of today, they have almost drawn out all of the empty in-between bars most of the way.

So what should I do now if I want to A) regress to small cell B) get the entire brood area on 1 1/4" bars and C) Get that plastic out of there?

Should I move all the newly drawn comb on 1 1/4" bars together near the entrance and group the original chopped comb with plastic and 1 1/2" bars toward the inside of the hive - thus making it more likely to be transitioned to honey? Is this something I should do sooner than later? Should I do something else - Or should I leave them be for a while?

Thanks,

Adam
 
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#3 ·
My guess is your using foundationless tbh? Don't push all the new comb together it wont fit, instead since you have some 1-1/4" drawn bars remove the old plastic stuff (not all at once depending on how much you have) and replace each removed plastic bar with a new empty bar, I would move the plastic stuff away from the brood area and let the bees draw new comb on the replacement bars. Hopefully they will abandon the plastic foundation bars once the brood has emerged and use it for honey/pollen storage. If not at least you will have a solid 1-1/4" tb broodnest without the old plastic foundation, then you just keep moving it away from the nest center. I realised yesterday that I would need to do this with my cutouts, since the queen doesn't want to lay eggs in the old cutout comb prefering the new comb instead, I ended up with brood on the outside of the comb and pollen/honey in the center exactly the shape of the old cutout comb.
 
#5 ·
Sam, you say in your post:

"I would move the plastic stuff away from the brood area and let the bees draw new comb on the replacement bars. ... then you just keep moving it away from the nest center."

How do I do that exactly? I can see just lifting the one furthest back from the entrance (at the end) and replacing it with an empty bar, but what about ones in the center of the nest? How do I get those out without moving the queen and a lot of brood?

maybe these are dumb questions... but still, I can't quite see how it should be done.

Adam
 
#6 ·
How do I do that exactly? I can see just lifting the one furthest back from the entrance (at the end) and replacing it with an empty bar, but what about ones in the center of the nest? How do I get those out without moving the queen and a lot of brood?

maybe these are dumb questions... but still, I can't quite see how it should be done.


Slide the bars apart at the center of the broodnest, until you have a gap wide enough to put in an empty top bar.
 
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