[wholesomedirt]

I installed two packages in March. One requeened, but they seemed to have righted the ship and are progressing nicely. We have had a good flow, and they are packing in the honey. The other, however, is a monster (in a good way, I think). In two months they have produced 4 medium 8 frame supers packed full of bees. When I inspected them yesterday, it is again FULL of brood and larvae. I had plenty of eggs, but I did notice that the queen is backing off on laying. However, they have limited stores. Is she building up too much? I don't see how a hive that will likely be 5 supers tall in two weeks full of bees with limited resources and nearing the dearth is going to be sustainable. Should I split them? Make nucs? Leave it alone? I should mention I have been actively keeping the brood nest open and no signs of swarming yet.

 

[psfred]

Your excess bee problem will fix itself shortly if you don't give them more room or make a split (or both). Add a couple empty supers, drawn comb if at all possible, foundation if not. Otherwise, you are very likely to have them swarm.

They have no place to store anything. Do not feed, just super up.

You can also take a box with the queen and some capped brood, making sure to leave at least one frame of eggs in the old hive, and make a split so you have a new hive with a laying queen and the old hive making a new one. With no brood to care for during the month or so it takes to get a queen up and going, they will pack away a large amount of honey if you give them someplace to store it.

It is not unusual for an unlimited brood nest to get quite large. This is why some people use queen excluders, it allows them to reduce the size of the brood nest and increase the amount of honey storage, at least in theory.

Peter

 

[JustinH]

Hi Wholesome! I'm in Murfreesboro too and I'm also running 8 frame mediums. My bees have almost filled up 3 total boxes. So you're 1 super ahead of me. Maybe there's better forage in your area or maybe because you installed in March. I installed April 1. Are you going on the bee field trip today at Keith's farm?