I may have goofed. I'm thinking I did. I had 4 nucs in double deeps that were excessively bearding. They were covering the fronts of the nucs and balling under the landing board. There had to be a couple thousand bees outside each nuc at any given time. I figure they needed moving to a 10 frame deep, so that's what I did. None of the nucs had put up much honey. There was on average 2 frames of solid honey per hive. The other 8 frames had honey in each top corner and random ages of brood, or open cells in each frame. It seemed to me that the queens had scaling back on laying for the dearth that they are currently in.
My question now is, do I need to feed these hives enough so they will draw a super of comb above the brood nest? Or will they do that if I feed? I figure they would probably just plug every cell in the brood chamber before they would draw more comb. This will be a regional response but will a single deep with no stores overhead winter in north AL? Do I need to move them back to a 5 over 5 configuration before winter? It seems as though I have read that bees need to move up into stores in the winter, or will the cluster move from one side to the other?
My question now is, do I need to feed these hives enough so they will draw a super of comb above the brood nest? Or will they do that if I feed? I figure they would probably just plug every cell in the brood chamber before they would draw more comb. This will be a regional response but will a single deep with no stores overhead winter in north AL? Do I need to move them back to a 5 over 5 configuration before winter? It seems as though I have read that bees need to move up into stores in the winter, or will the cluster move from one side to the other?
