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Author Topic: package on drawn comb - when to super?  (Read 1398 times)

Offline eri

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package on drawn comb - when to super?
« on: April 17, 2009, 07:43:34 pm »
Installed a package on drawn comb (from last year's deadout) last week. Checked it today and I am so bad at spotting either eggs or queens that I saw neither, but am willing to wait for larvae (I can see those). Lots of empty cells everywhere but several frames covered with bees.

Since they don't have many wax-building chores except for repair and filling out one partially-drawn frame, should I super now or wait -- wait for what?

On Pleasure
Kahlil Gibran
....
And to both, bee and flower, the giving and the receiving of pleasure is a need and an ecstasy.
People of Orphalese, be in your pleasures like the flowers and the bees.

Offline doak

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Re: package on drawn comb - when to super?
« Reply #1 on: April 17, 2009, 07:54:36 pm »
First off, don't be in a hurry to super a package.
For the many bees on the frame, take one finger and "gently" push the bees around and see if there is anything under them. What are they hiding? :roll:
How many boxes high are you on this one? :)doak

Offline iddee

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Re: package on drawn comb - when to super?
« Reply #2 on: April 17, 2009, 09:22:17 pm »
When 8 or more frames are full, "by weight", then super. Not until then.
"Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me . . . Anything can happen, child. Anything can be"

*Shel Silverstein*

Offline eri

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Re: package on drawn comb - when to super?
« Reply #3 on: April 18, 2009, 08:42:24 am »
Thanks! So, specifically, what I am looking for is a majority of cells on 8 frames filled with brood and stores? And yes, some comb was so thick with bees that I had to tickle a few here and there to see if they were "hiding" anything underneath because the frames felt heavy just with the weight of the bees.
On Pleasure
Kahlil Gibran
....
And to both, bee and flower, the giving and the receiving of pleasure is a need and an ecstasy.
People of Orphalese, be in your pleasures like the flowers and the bees.