Lots of Honey-very little brood

1042 Views 1 Reply 2 Participants Last post by sqkcrk, Jul 22, 2014

capebee

Discussion Starter · Jul 22, 2014

We have a nuc installed this past late May. I put the 5 frames that came with the nuc
in a deep and added 5 more frames. On top we put another hive body and a pail of
syrup. And a couple of weeks after that added another deep and still kept feeding.
About 2 weeks ago we noticed they were filling the second deep we put on with honey
and the brood pattern in the first deep was not very robust. I stopped feeding, and added
another deep, moving the deep with the honey to the top and adding the additional deep, sandwiched
in the middle between the bottom and the top (the one filled with honey). In looking in the
hive the other day, there's plenty of bees in the added deep, the one in the middle, but they're not
really building the frames out too much and they're still filling and capping the top deep with honey.

Any insights as to why they'd fill that (original) second deep with honey? One thought I had
is that perhaps...could they have swarmed at some point? But being a Nuc, and new hive... what are the
chances of swarming? Befuddled by the whole thing?

So why such little brood patterns and why so much honey? THANKS!!

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sqkcrk

· #2 · Jul 22, 2014

Seems to me that the bees had not finished working that super which had already been partly filled w/ honey and it is late in the season for the drawing of comb. I don't expect much more comb to be drawn from now on unless I force the bees to do so, give them no other choice. And then still they may just pack the brood nest instead of building more comb to store honey.

You might be better off pulling that super of foundation from between the other boxes and allow your bees to do what is natural.

I cannot tell what you mean by "such little brood patterns". How large an area of brood is there on how many frames? Open brood as well as capped brood. Pictures of each frame w/ brood woulkd be nice if you can. Maybe take a ruler w/ you when you go back to look.

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