So I keep stacking and she keeps laying in them. All 8 frame meds I am up to five high on one. They will lay up the four in the middle then move up leaving the outside frames empty. A few are doing this not just one. Funny story, friday I had to move a few hives out of my yard so I could spray roundup and shoot some cardinals. The tall stack was so top heavy it flipped on its side when I hit a few bumps two of the boxes rotated just enough to expose a small opening. In a cloud of bees I had to retrieve my suit which was in the back of the truck, the rest is history. I re arranged one yesterday and added a Q.E. for experimental purposes only. Not sure why they are not constructing this so called honey barrier? Any suggestions?
Honey barrier?
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Feel Free to rearrange frames. You can move the drawn, with or without brood, down and replace the empties on the sides, to get full boxes. You-da-master! The queen will always be working the drawn comb, although I have seen eggs in partially drawn comb that the bees then finish while tending the young. So she wants to lay, and will fill comb to her hearts content. If the bees don't keep up, she will move up into supers to keep going. By re-arranging combs to fill the bottom box, gives her more, down below to work with, so she will be more inclined to stay down. Checker-boarding can help by moving the drawn with brood out to the edges and alternating empties toward the inside, to stimulate drawing them out. Don't super until they have filled 70 to 80% of the current box. You shouldn't get swarming attempts until the queen and / or the bees feel crowded. With empties in the middle, they shouldn't bee too crowded. But when you get a box pretty much full of brood, your bee count will begin to explode exponentially when they hatch, and it can fairly quickly get crowded, so watch and be ready with super.
In short, you can manipulate to get the configuration best for you. All else fails, place a queen exclude'r above the brood chamber, and you'll get pure honey above. Without a queen exclude'r, you may get some odd brood above, but you can simply move those down later. Some beeks just work around the queen and take the honey that they get in pure frames. Depending on flows, and other weather conditions, she may expand the brood chamber and bee count to two full deeps of brood, with as many supers above as needed for honey.
Remember bees are perfectly happy with honey everywhere and in partials. It is the beekeeper that wants it pure for easy extracting. Bees naturally will generally put brood low and honey high, to facilitate movement vertically during the winter, but they don't always get it right. So unless you are one of those beekeepers that are practicing hands-off management, feel free to muck it up, and learn what you can get away with. Might as well form one of your own opinions, to go along with the many that you will find out and about, in this forum... JMO and 2 cents worth.
In short, you can manipulate to get the configuration best for you. All else fails, place a queen exclude'r above the brood chamber, and you'll get pure honey above. Without a queen exclude'r, you may get some odd brood above, but you can simply move those down later. Some beeks just work around the queen and take the honey that they get in pure frames. Depending on flows, and other weather conditions, she may expand the brood chamber and bee count to two full deeps of brood, with as many supers above as needed for honey.
Remember bees are perfectly happy with honey everywhere and in partials. It is the beekeeper that wants it pure for easy extracting. Bees naturally will generally put brood low and honey high, to facilitate movement vertically during the winter, but they don't always get it right. So unless you are one of those beekeepers that are practicing hands-off management, feel free to muck it up, and learn what you can get away with. Might as well form one of your own opinions, to go along with the many that you will find out and about, in this forum... JMO and 2 cents worth.
If you want to run three medium brood boxes, I'd suggest putting six frames full of nectar(not capped honey) across the middle of the fourth box. Put queen and brood below this. Six nectar frames serve as a barrier to queen moving up, yet bees will work the wet nectar. This worked for me last year. Keep the four frames on the sides with open comb by moving filled frames up to outside positions above.
IMHO, I would not suggest a queen excluder. They impede bee movement and moving nectar about in the hive, and in a strong nectar flow, bees can readily backfill brood nest and cause swarming. I have not had good success with queen excluders.
IMHO, I would not suggest a queen excluder. They impede bee movement and moving nectar about in the hive, and in a strong nectar flow, bees can readily backfill brood nest and cause swarming. I have not had good success with queen excluders.
If you want to change how they are doing it (I'm not sure what the purpose is) you can take the honey from the outsides and fill a box with it and fill those gaps with brood from other boxes until you have the bottom boxes of all brood with a cap of honey at the top.
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