[Pondulinus]

Hi, I am transitioning to medium frames and I have been feeding my hives to get the bees to fill medium frames with new comb. As I feed they fill alot of their existing comb with honey leaving little space for brood. My plan was to take the frames with new comb and syrup out of the hives and feed the syrup back to the bees by placing the frames nerby the hives, in the open. When the frames (and comb) is empty I would place them in the brood chamber for brood rearing. What I was not considering was that there are alot of wasps around in late summer. Feeding in the open is no longer an option as the wasps will kill alot of my bees.

So, do anyone have any tips on how I can increase the space for brood rearing and still get the bees to draw comb? I live in a cold country so it is important that the hives are steong going into winter. I currently do not have access to an extractor either.

 

[AR1]

So I'm guessing you don't have medium frames with comb, but since you are transitioning to medium, you might have deep frames? Try cutting the comb out and putting it in mediums with rubber bands.
I don't know any way to make bees draw comb when they don't feel like it! I've got some frames that have been in and out of different hives for 4 years and they all have ignored those frames, while building happily on other frames from the same box.

 

[Saltybee]

Put your combs above inner cover in a closed body. Screen your inner cover. I would reduce my entrance as much as I dare.

Feeding sub mayhelp with comb building.

 

[Pondulinus]

Hi, thanks for the tips! As the deep frames are mostly plastic I cant reuse the comb from these. I will however try to feed newly drawn frames that are filled with syrup back to the bees through the top feeder. Think there are any chance that the bees think the top feeder is now their home and starts drawing burr comb inside it?

 

[Jack Grimshaw]

Transition to all meds takes time.Just leave your med supers on your hives over winter and the bees will move up and the Q will start to lay in the upper boxes.Remove deep boxes from the bottom as they become empty in the spring while adding new boxes with foundation on top with the flow.Move up a few frames of drawn comb with each new box and add foundation in their place,making sure your frames are tight together.Don't split the brood nest unless the colony is really cranking.

Take your time ,keep it simple and work with the bees.It took me 3 yrs to get all my deeps out.

 

[Jack Grimshaw]

I had about 30 deep green plastic drone frames.Because I am a cheap b****rd, I scraped them clean and ran them through my table saw and cut them down to 6 1/4 in. and now use them as mediums.