Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: newbee07 on May 12, 2007, 04:05:42 pm
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I installed my supers last week and to find out i had ant in them like crazy. I also noticed no bees were in them. So i removed the excluder and it has now been 2 weeks since i been back and am about to go in about 5 hours from now to see what i open into. Did i mess up or will the queen usually stay down within this period and should i install the excluder today when i go back if she is still down in lower body. By the way i am running single brood boxes with shallow supers. Thanks for any help.
newbee07
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A single shallow for a brood box? You might have more brood in the one you don't want the queen in then.
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If you have a lot of ants in a hive, you have a very weak hive that is failing. You need to reduce it down to small enough that they can guard what they have.
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Time for a nuc box. Reduce the size of the hive to give the bees a chance then enlarge as they develop.
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If the supers you installed above the queen excluder had just foundation in them, then I am not surprised the bees ignored them. If you are going to use an excluder, you need something above it to lure the bees thru it. A frame or two of uncapped brood works nicely. If you only have one brood chamber, then it is very likely the queen has moved up and is laying in the supers. If you want to run with the excluder, move the queen back down to the bottom and re-install the excluder. The brood she had laid in the supers will keep the bees above the excluder. Once it hatches, the bees will continue to work above the excluder and you won't have any more brood up there.
If your only running one brood chamber, you have to keep an eye on it more so that the queen doesn't get honey bound and run out of places to lay. If you are located 5 hours away and don't get there that often, I would highly suggest having a bigger brood area.