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Author Topic: Cant get them to draw out comb.  (Read 4939 times)

Offline Horns Pure Honey

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Cant get them to draw out comb.
« on: June 17, 2005, 02:44:16 pm »
Ok, I dont ask many questions anymore but this one has me stumped. I told many of you that I received a free hive from one of my grandpas friends. On the inside it was a total mess an we could only save 2 supers full of brood and honey. Well I put a deep on top of it to have them draw it out, that isnt working. So now I am feeding them sugar syrup with 2 entrace feeders hoping that they will have no place to store it and are forced to build comb to store it. I am checking today to see if it is working. If I cant get them to at least fill that deep by the end of fall they are going to be gonners. I also know for a fact that they have enough bees in the colony to draw it out and use it. Ok, now it comes to you guys, are there any tricks that you know to get them to draw it out? I realy want to get 2 deeps drawn out and filled even if that means feeding them all year long.  Thanks for all the info :D
Ryan Horn

Anonymous

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Cant get them to draw out comb.
« Reply #1 on: June 17, 2005, 04:10:56 pm »
Is the queen OK?  Is there brood in various stages?  You don't have a queen excluder on, do you?

Offline Horns Pure Honey

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Cant get them to draw out comb.
« Reply #2 on: June 17, 2005, 04:29:26 pm »
My queen is fine and going strong for being a few years old, I plan to replace her with a russian queen this fall. I have brood in various stages and I have noticed that the colony is growing and as I said I know for a fact that they have enough workers to draw out. And lastly I dont use queen excluders. These bees are all living in 2 supers and just seem that they dont want to draw out the comb even though I have seen them in the deep.Thanks alot :D
Ryan Horn

Offline Miss Chick-a-BEE

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Cant get them to draw out comb.
« Reply #3 on: June 17, 2005, 05:37:39 pm »
That has me stumped too. How long have you had the hive? Is it possible that most of the bees are nurse bees at this time?

Beth

Offline thegolfpsycho

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Cant get them to draw out comb.
« Reply #4 on: June 17, 2005, 05:47:59 pm »
You can bait them up with a couple frames of brood.  You can checkerboard the foundation down into the other boxes.  If the colony is strong, shouldn't be a problem.  If they are listless in general, they may not want to work the wax with swarming in mind.

Offline Horns Pure Honey

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Cant get them to draw out comb.
« Reply #5 on: June 17, 2005, 05:50:30 pm »
Ive had them for at least a month now. Their is no way that all those bees would be nurse bees, there are just to many of them, I would say at least 30,000. :)
Ryan Horn

Offline TwT

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Cant get them to draw out comb.
« Reply #6 on: June 17, 2005, 06:00:53 pm »
Quote from: thegolfpsycho
You can bait them up with a couple frames of brood.  You can checkerboard the foundation down into the other boxes.  If the colony is strong, shouldn't be a problem.  If they are listless in general, they may not want to work the wax with swarming in mind.



this is what I think you should do like golf said, I had a hive this year that drew out the 1st deep and didnt touch the deep on top, I checker boarded it and they drew out everthing, just take a few frames of brood from the bottom and put foundation in there place but be sure you have a drawn out frame in-between the foundation and put the frames you took from the bottom and do the same with the top, it will work, the only problem you might see if you put  a frame of honey that isnt capped yet, they might draw it out so for that the foundation will not have room to be drawn.
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Anonymous

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Cant get them to draw out comb.
« Reply #7 on: June 17, 2005, 06:14:47 pm »
Hm.  Got me.   :?

Offline Horns Pure Honey

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Cant get them to draw out comb.
« Reply #8 on: June 17, 2005, 06:32:49 pm »
Ok, I was thinking about that. thanks :D
Ryan Horn

Offline Apis629

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Cant get them to draw out comb.
« Reply #9 on: June 18, 2005, 06:41:05 pm »
I've heared that you can make a 1:1 sugar water mix, spray the foundation of the upper deep with it, place the upper deep on the hive ant that should entice the bees up into it.  I"m not sure how well it works...I've never tried it.

Offline Horns Pure Honey

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Cant get them to draw out comb.
« Reply #10 on: June 18, 2005, 07:16:10 pm »
I gave them 2 frames of brood today from my strongest hive. I might have to put a second super on the strongest, they are working very hard.
Ryan Horn

Offline latebee

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Cant get them to draw out comb.
« Reply #11 on: June 22, 2005, 12:07:31 am »
If there are a lot of bees in the hive-at least 14 frames or more I think there should be little problem in getting them to draw foundation or get them going on starter strips.If there are less than 6 full frames of bees there will be a problem in drawing them out. I dont think you mentioned how strong this hive was as far a number of bees.
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Offline Daddy-T

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Cant get them to draw out comb.
« Reply #12 on: June 22, 2005, 09:52:27 am »
Hi all,
          Now this is just our second year at this. We started 9 new hives this year all on plastic foundations. In the info that came with the foundation it said to mist the new foundation with sugar water when it is installed. We did that, and for what we know it worked they took to it ok. When we installed the 2nd deep we did it again, but some of the hives were slow to move up. We misted the new foundation once a week till they finally started building comb. Some of the colonies took about 2 weeks to start building, but once they did they took off. We also used the same practice on our honey supers. All of our honey supers are small frames with plastic foundations too. From what we have experienced (being our 2nd year and all) When they are ready they will go to it…..  We did leave a frame feeder mixed 1:1 in all the hives with the new honey supers on to help draw out the comb. Some of the hives will take a gallon of feed every 3-4 days. Some don’t take any at all. We just figured if we have a bunch of sugar stored into the comb we will just feed it back to the hives this fall. We are just trying to get all of our frames drawn out, as fast as we can. Then when the Golden Rod comes on this fall we will have our Honey supers primed and ready for the bees to load up for us. I have not had any problem as far as robbing yet. We purchased 60 gal. of corn syrup this spring for $.14 a Lb. and figured if we had it we may as well use it.

Tim
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Offline Horns Pure Honey

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Cant get them to draw out comb.
« Reply #13 on: June 23, 2005, 01:34:09 am »
They had a month to build till I got wandering about it. They are all in 2 supers with the full 20 frames and they are jam packed into that area. I am opening it to check this week since tomarrow is on thursday you will all have to wait at least 2 days :) bye!
Ryan Horn