help! I don't get what is going on here.

[alfred]

I need help understanding what is going on in my hive.
A month ago I had two brood boxes full, so I added a queen excluder and a super. After a week and a half there was still very little activity in the super. The bees were moving up into it but in very small numbers and they had made no comb at all.

I decided that I would try to entice them by spraying the plastic pierco frames and foundation with sugar syrup. I also thought that the vent hole which was just below the queen excluder might also be part of the problem so I removed it and proped up the telescoping lid a little for ventilation instead.

I visited my hive today it has been over a month now since the addition of the super. they have made some comb but it is in strange configurations. Where there is comb it is in large lumps/blobs and columns which fill the entire width between the frames leaving no space between,  but most of the space is empty.

I decided to open up the rest of the hive. I found the brood boxes full of honey and brood seemingly all healthy and fine. I didn't see the queen but I did see plenty of larvae and caped brood. Everything looked great.

I have included several pics so that you can see what I mean. Sorry that the picture quality is so poor my camera is cheap.

thanks for any help.
Alfred

 Here is a sampling of the frames from the super.
















here is the super viewed from above with two frames removed.



here is a sampling of frames from the brood boxes.

[randydrivesabus]

do you have a flow going on?

[Scadsobees]

Sometimes they have trouble with plastic foundation.  Plastic works best when there is a strong flow on.

Did you have all the frames pushed tight togather?  The bees also sometimes don't like to draw on the frames, and if there is a little extra room between the frames they will burr it up and build between.

Oh, and you mentioned an excluder...queen excluders don't work so well with plastic foundation until it is drawn.  Once drawn then the excluder can be used with better results.

You can scrape all of the extra burr comb out, use the honey if any and it isn't contaminated with sugar syrup or feed it back if it is, and put the foundation back in without the excluder.

Rick

[Kathyp]

even with wax foundation, the excluder works better after the bees are working the honey super well.

when the time comes to buy new equipment, you might want to consider going with wax foundation.  bees like it better. 

one thought....if your lower boxes are that full, you might want to pull a couple of honey frames from there and replace with some empty, drawn frames. just empty frames if you don't have any already drawn.  you can freeze the honey frames to feed back later.  take the frames closest to the brood nest....not the brood  :-)

you can take off the comb that's sticking out, but if it's just a strange pattern, i'd leave it an see if they fill in.  that might have been as much as a few bees can handle building, and without the excluder, they'll fix it.

[Dane Bramage]

Unsure what the specific culprit is; lack of flow, plastic foundation, excluder on too soon - or combination thereof but, I can vouch that using wax foundation in a good flow and putting on the excluder after at least one super is being well-drawn has worked very well for me.  The only plastic that comes near my bees is my credit card.  ;)

[BeeHopper]

Good thread and pics  :-D  Queen excluders and wax coated plastic/ plastic foundation are two items I have avoided by following the examples of members here and that other bee site.  :-D

[Scadsobees]

Did you have all 10 in there pushed togather into the middle?  If the frames are evenly spaced they will have too much room between frames and draw the comb the wrong way.

Scrape the improperly drawn comb off, push them togather, and they should be able to draw it better.  They already have a pretty good start on some of it.  They will still draw that out wavey and it may not be drawn out quick, but will be better without the burring. After the first extraction then it will be straightened out.

Rick

[Michael Bush]

Some bees just don't like plastic.  The more you crowd them the less they usually mess them up.

[alfred]

Thanks to everyone for all of the help.

I did have the frames pushed together tight as a matter of fact the frames fit so tightly that I had a hard time getting them all in the super.

I honestly don't know how to tell if there is a flow on. There are lots of flowers around now and I see the girls coming and going all the time working hard so I assume that there is plenty going on.

I find it interesting that they didn't seem to have a hard time with the plastic in the brood boxes and yet seem to in the super.

Today I am going to remove the burcomb in the super and also remove the queen excluder and see what happens. I am a little nervous about it as I have yet to be able to locate my queen so I am not sure that I would be able to locate her when I decide to reinstall the excluder.


On a whole different subject. When I pulled the hive apart the other day those deeps were unbelivably heavy. I used to unload grocery trucks and now I am a massage therapist so I am strong but that was rediculous. I was thinking of spitting the hive and using the current two deeps as the bases and then stacking a medium or two on top for the rest of the brood space. Of course I would have to locate the queen if I did this wouldn't I... This way I  save my back some (as I don't usually move the bottom deep) while at the same time saving the comb in the deep frames rather than simply switching compleatly to all meduims. what do you think

I definitly plan to switch to wood and wax from the plastic in any future endeavors.

thanks again for the assitance.
Alfred

[Dane Bramage]

I definitly plan to switch to wood and wax from the plastic in any future endeavors.

Checking the news today, that's likely not a bad idea.

Best of success!

[Michael Bush]

>When I pulled the hive apart the other day those deeps were unbelivably heavy.

90 pounds and then they are stuck to the box below which also weighs 90 pounds...

"...no man's back is unbreakable and even beekeepers grow older. When full, a mere shallow super is heavy, weighing forty pounds or more. Deep supers, when filled, are ponderous beyond practical limit."--Richard Taylor

http://www.bushfarms.com/beeslazy.htm#lighterboxes

[rdy-b]

let that round of brood hatch out takes time for the bees to line up there ducks :) part of there house duties will be moving the honey up so the queen has space. same size equipment relay has its advantages in this kind of situation. you have lots of brood lots of honey they are starting to draw wax in the supper some times it is hard because things go a little slower than you would like but you have every thing resource wise for them to complete there task remember rule #1 let the bees be bees my experience with plastic is that the deeps are the hardest and it looks like your methods where good for that part of the job you will be fine  ;) RDY-B