[Yunzow]

Hey, everyone,

I have been experimenting with different hive sizes and I made a 17" by 17" hive. I had installed a swarm in it last year, that my friend had caught. I realized it probably died out some months ago. I decided to "dissect" it today.

When I was trying to remove the bars, they all wanted to come up at once, so I was, what the heck, let's see if I can pull all the bars out at once. Sure enough, they all came out completely intact.

So I took a bunch of pictures, that this was a weird thing to see, seldom seen, so I took of pictures. Mind you I turned everything upside down for convenience.

The swarm initially started building combs *on the bottom* of my frames, and then later went to the top of the frames.

Regards,
Thomas View attachment 53935

 

[crofter]

I saw a recent mention that tall frames should be placed under the frames of the colony you want to draw out and populate. Otherwise if placed above, they start from bottom to top. Your pics. seem to validate that scenario. I was contemplating trying some extra tall designs but have recently modified that idea limited to the 11 1/4" Dadant size. In a tree they build top down but with the short but wide Lang frames we come to think of them as expanding upwards.

 

[Yunzow]

My plan this year is to forgo the frames entirely and just deal with it.