Howdy all
The other day i was doing my inspection and in hive two i saw some rond comb on the bottom of the hive board.
I have seen this in another beekeepers hive and i would like to know why they are doing this
and i saw in the third hive they are drawing out comb and storing lots of honey.
They have several frames filled with capped brood
and they have about three and a half frmes still to be drawn out
and the same for hive two
i am thinking serious about uniting they both together until the spring and then split them and have three hives again.
As for the first hive i am going to take a frame of honey from the brood chamber and move it up into the top hive body and see if this will get them to start moving up
the bottom is jam packed with bees and so is the top but
i think they need a little help getting going.
Tom
You have so much story that it is difficult to see what is going on. Backgroud is still unclear what to say
You have two hives which are too small to build all foundations. They are able to build when more bees emerge.
One hive had 2 box full of bees?
You may help small ones when you take from biggest hive a frame of emerging bees. Shake all bees into hive and give the brood frame where they ar coming out.
One full brood frame gives 3 frames bees and so you get whole box full. Keep brood frames together and do not arrange empty frames inside brood area. - Look what happens during one week.
2-box hive is not very big. If it is crowdy give to it third box. If you take at once 2 frames emerging bees it will disturb too much the development of your best hive.
I have done even this that when small hive has any more room for egg laying I give ne capped brood frame to bigg hive and arrange room to queen.
But the goal is to get small hives whole box filled with bees. After that hives is able to normal build upp. It takes time because brood cycle is 3 weeks.
When small hives a full of bees from wall to wall, you may give second box but give it under the brood box. Bees occupy that box when they need more space. So it happens in nature. Colony enlarges downwards.