[LittleBeeHive]

I just inspected my hive after a week. I think I found several queen cells. Can someone help out and advise if they are. I went ahead and put a new hive body on the top.

The pictures are at www.gallery223.com. Click on beekeeping 101 and go to page 3. I would appreciate any advise at this point.

 

[rweakley]

They look just like queen cups to me. Which would be possible future queen cells. I also see that you have drone brood down there also. Make sure they have plenty of room, but I don't think you have anything to worry about right now.

 

[Michael Bush]

The queen cells aren't capped yet, but one, at least, looks like more than a cup now (it's a bit longer). That worrys me a bit. Also you seem to have almost an inch or more of burr comb on the bottom bar. What kind of space is there from the bottom bar to the bottom? There really shouldn't be more than 7/8" from the bottom of the bottom bar to the top of the bottom board (not the side, but the bottom). Wich is 3/4" from the bottom of the box. Any more and they will build a lot of burr under there. It looks to me by the amount of drone that you've got at least 1 1/4" of comb on the bottom and that means you've got at least 1 1/2" of space below the bottom bar. Is that correct?

How crowded is the brood nest? Is there a lot of honey in the brood nest? I'd probably try to open it up if it's got a lot of honey in it. Put an empty frame in (no foundation would be fine or foundation if you like) between two frames of brood in a couple of places to give the queen room to lay.

 

[LittleBeeHive]

I have a screen bottom board that I got from Brushy Bee. It does seem like there is a lot of room at the bottom. Seems like more than 7/8". Not sure why. I went in today for another inspection and everything looked great. I found the queen and saw plenty of new eggs being laid.I went in and got rid of all of the queen cells. Only one had an egg in it I think. I had to get rid of some of the drone in the process. What can I do about that extra space at the bottom. I also added another hive body yesterday. The bees don't seem like they are in a swarming mood. They are still bringing in plenty of pollen, like there isn't enough in the brood chamber already

.

Let me know what you think I should do about the extra space.

 

[King bee apiary]

I don't have one so I don't know anything about them but could it be upside down?I don't have hardly any burr comb on the underside of my frames,just between brood box's about 1/2- 3/4 inch for ladders.

 

[tstrottman]

I inspected my hives today. These are package bees installed on new equipment. They have 5 or 6 frames drawn out with eggs, larve, and capped brood. There are aleast 4 frames that they haven't touched, yet I found a capped supercedure cell in one hive and the start of another in one of the other ones. I left them alone. Is it time to put the next brood box on or should I wait untill they get a few more frames drawn out. I did arrange the empty frames amongst the ones they were working on.

 

[Tobikiri]

tstrottsman,
your description sounds exactly like one of my hives that I installed 17 days ago and inspected yesterday. I saw capped brood and a little bit of uncapped larvae, but I couldn't spot the queen. I assume that she is gone, dead, or somehow unsatisfactory, and I, too, left the supercedure cells alone. Since I'm new at this, I figured the bees knew more about what to do than I do!
I didn't add another brood box on at this time. I plan to wait until they've got 8 frames drawn and filled with brood before I add the next box.

Here's hoping we did the right thing, and here's hoping someone will tell us if we didn't!

 

[tecumseh]

tstrottman adds: I did arrange the empty frames amongst the ones they were working on.
tecumseh replies: I hope you meant you arranged the empty frames along side the frames that were being worked. If you make the mistake of seperating a frame of newly laid eggs (which are sometimes hard to see) by insert a new frame with foundation thereby isolating this one frame from the main cluster of brood, you are almost insuring that the bees will draw a queen cell on this isolated frame. The same thing can happen vertically if say you seperated two brood box with a box of new foundation.

 

[Michael Bush]

All of my SBB are from Brushy Mt and I don't see that. Are they the right sized frames for the box? I am a bit confused about the amount of burr on the bottom bar.