[laketrout]

I have a parent hive from a split that didn't end up replacing the queen , its been 6 weeks and no queen and no brood or eggs but it still has alot of bee's . To speed things up I purchased a mated queen from are club . In the mean time without a queen laying any eggs they have totally filled one complete med. super with all honey . This hive is one that I have been working on to remove all deep frames from and now have it in a three medium configuration . At this point its one complete super of honey , one super of honey and pollen and another of some drawn comb and a little honey . The queen should get out on Thursday and hopefully start laying in a weeks time . Question is how should I set this hive up as far as frames go , and the full super of honey .

 

[rkereid]

Sort of depends on if you have a nectar flow. If you do, extract one of your honey supers and put it back. Keep any honey in the hive in the top, the way they would do it.

If there is no nectar, and you could predict the future and know there will not be some soon, leave them the way they are with the empty drawn comb at the bottom. They will consume some of the honey this summer and make space.

The strong hives in my area will use 4 med boxes for brood and winter stores, honey supers above that. If that was the case where you are, you might want to put on another box of foundation and feed so they will draw it out. If you have empty drawn comb, put it on and maybe they will fill it on a fall flow.

 

[waynesgarden]

I'm guessing that you don't have any empty drawn comb on hand or extra supers. Can you extract some honey from some of those frames? Your new queen will need space to lay straight away. I'd arrange the bottom box with frames of pollen on the outside, then frames of honey next, and the middle 6 frames empty comb. I'd get a box of empty comb on (or foundation if you can't extract,) while you still have a lot of bees. The white clover is blooming like gangbusters here,

Good luck.

Wayne

 

[laketrout]

Thanks for the help guys , I lost power on Monday night from a really bad storm out of the west with reported 70 MPH wind . Alot of damage and trees down , been running the generator since Monday to keep things going .

I checked the hive today and the queen is out and they do have drawn comb in the bottom two supers , I have the full super of honey on the top , there still bring in nectar so there is somewhat of a flow going . No luck yet with a used extractor so thats not a option yet , so I could leave it on until the fall or could I spread it out to some of my smaller hives .