[bradley39482]

can anyone direct me in the forums where it might tell me where in a 10 frame hive body the egg,the brood,the poline and the honey frames are placed? or rather where in the hive body they are usualy found.
thanks!

 

[bradley39482]

i did my first hive check today, seems there doing good, and found the honey store in the back 2 frames, and i think i saw some polin stores in cells, the very first frame had not been touched, was wondering about this to!

 

[concrete-bees]

there is no "golden rule" for placement of anything in a hive but there is a "pattern" that bees like to follow

first is with the eggs .... the queen will like to start laying in the center of the hive body and center of the frames- and she will work in an outward spiral movement -- as the eggs hatch they are then brood so you find brood where she layed eggs

next in the layers is the "pollen" not poline -- anyhow the pollen is usually placed about 2 inches from the growing brood -

then honey is placed around the outside of the pollen

bees make round shaped hives in the wild but we use squared because it stacks better
so just think of a round shape in a square box

i hope i have helped make a picture for you

 

[bradley39482]

yep
thanks concrete, sorry about the spelling, two kids hanging off my leg doesn't help sometimes,LOL. i was just wondering about the frames, as i want to possibly do a split this August, we have long summers down here in the deep south, all the way to November. wanted to make sure i get the right frames for the split, and let them make their own queen. have noticed that my bee's are bringing in a LOT of pollen. could this be due to the queen laying plenty of eggs?

 

[concrete-bees]

Most people would split a hive no later than July -
if you split a hive ..... im thinking with no added queen .... it will take the bees 20 days to produce a queen and then another week to have her mate and a few more days to get there set to lay eggs - about a month of down time - during this time they are a month behind in honey production to get winter stores in order.

splitting in August is pushing it -- id say split in the next few weeks

also --- what helps is to split before a honey flow and then combine after the honey has been pulled - this requires a nuc to hold the spare queen for sometime but it works in your favor


pollen intake is in response to open brood numbers -- it takes 10 loads of pollen to feed one larva --
the larve get fed 10,000 times from the time they hatch until they are capped
........lot of pollen for 50,000 bees huh? but the queen lays about 200,000 eggs a year - so thats about 2 million loads of pollen a year !!!!!!!!!

a good book to read would be Larry Conners - Increase Essentials

he goes into great depth to explain spilts

good luck with it

 

[bradley39482]

thanks concrete,
i really appreciate your taking the time to answer my tedious questions.
and thanks for the book advice, will get it. i'm just trying to keep my 1 hive up and going, and try and start another for backup. i find these bee's so interesting and amazing, i could sit there and watch them all day! stupid huh, for a 40 yr old man to want to do this,LOL.

 

[concrete-bees]

anytime - thats what we are here for

 

[beedeetee]

I make nucs here in August by adding a mated queen so I would think that you could get a split where you are at that time as long as they don't need to raise their own queen. It would be risky to raise their own queen because if they fail on the first attempt you would probably have to combine.

You are going to have to look at each frame to make sure that you get the right resources for each half of the hive.

When I started doing nucs I went through hives a week ahead and just looked at frames. I marked frames to remove in each hive then because it was calmer to do it at that time than when bees were flying and crawling everywhere and I couldn't remember what I had already put in the nucs or left in the parent hive.

 

[bradley39482]

beedeetee
i don't have any queens so they will have to make their own, i think ill try and do it in mid July. what do ya'll think?

 

[bradley39482]

can i use a regular hive body, 10 frame body, and add the pollen,and the egg, and the brood, and the honey frame's. and let them build their own queen? or do i have to have a nuc small frame body?

 

[bradley39482]

might have to wait until next year do do the split! hope they make it that long, they seem to be doing good now, i added another hive body this past monday, but they havent started any comb building yet in the top hive, they are moving in there and i saw this when i did an inspection saturday, the queen is laying eggs and the bee's are bringing in plenty of pollen. just wondering how long it will take for them to move into the top hive body.

 

[beedeetee]

i don't have any queens so they will have to make their own, i think ill try and do it in mid July. what do ya'll think?

I think that you probably need to talk to someone local. You won't have a laying queen until sometime in mid to late August. You have some challenges. Around here at that time of the year small hives are robbed mercilessly so be prepared. You have SHB to contend with I suspect so don't give them too much room to guard.

Even where you live I suspect that the best you would have is a single deep, but that should be easy to overwinter in Mississippi. Someone local could help you decide if spring splits or summer splits make more sense for you. Spring splits are easier is some ways. If something goes wrong you have time to fix it. You have flows to make everything work more smoothly. You might risk a honey crop though depending on when your flow is. So talk with a local beekeeper to get some ideas.

 

[bradley39482]

thanks beedee
i appreciate it! i think i will wait till next spring, but will talk to a local beekeeper.