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Author Topic: Help needed to xfer bees from medium hive to long hive ...  (Read 2941 times)

Offline Alpal

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Help needed to xfer bees from medium hive to long hive ...
« on: July 23, 2015, 08:36:11 pm »
G'day All

My bees are nicely snuggled down for our winter in Melbourne, Australia, (albeit mild by some comparisons). In the meantime, back at the ranch so to speak, I've been building a long hive (langstroth deeps X 32) and am wracking my poor little brains as to how to transfer my babies from their more traditional current medium size hive (we call them Manleys), where they are currently occupying two boxes - 1 brood and 1 honey etc.

The way I have built my new long hive does allow for a box to be put above the frame bay if necessary (front, mid or rear).

Now, I am concerned if I put medium frames into the hive designed for deep frames that the girls will maybe build more comb under the frame. Not certain. Perhaps if I only put the medium brood frames in and surround them with deep honey frames maybe that might work (I have two other horizontal long hives I could borrow from). Who knows?

Maybe if I put the brood box above empty deep frames in the new hive they might move down. I'm not sure.

Problems... Problems... Such fun!

Any ideas would be most appreciated.

Thanks

Alpal

Offline Eric Bosworth

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Re: Help needed to xfer bees from medium hive to long hive ...
« Reply #1 on: July 23, 2015, 09:30:19 pm »
They might/ probably will add comb to the bottom if you put mediums in a deep. If it were me I would not care. You can always scrape it off when you pull it out later.
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Offline iddee

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Re: Help needed to xfer bees from medium hive to long hive ...
« Reply #2 on: July 23, 2015, 10:06:20 pm »
Yes, they will draw comb on the bottom of the mediums.  SO WHAT??   Now you have a few deep frames with the bottom bar in the middle. They work just fine.

The extra comb will be mostly drone. You can keep it for raising drones, or cut it off and freeze it for varroa control, if you have varroa there. I have deep hives with mediums here and there. They work as well as the deep frames.
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Offline cao

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Re: Help needed to xfer bees from medium hive to long hive ...
« Reply #3 on: July 23, 2015, 10:32:18 pm »
Now, I am concerned if I put medium frames into the hive designed for deep frames that the girls will maybe build more comb under the frame. Not certain.
Yes they will. But that's not necessarily a problem.
Maybe if I put the brood box above empty deep frames in the new hive they might move down. I'm not sure.
They might move down or they may keep the brood there and store honey in the rest of the hive.  If they don't move down then you haven't accomplished much.

What I would suggest is come spring (when there is a flow) move only the frames with brood.  Put a couple empty frames in the middle of the brood nest for them to draw.  Repeat that after they have brood in them.  Eventually your medium frames(with comb hanging from the bottom) will be outside the brood nest where they will use it for honey.  Then you can pull them out and harvest them.  It may take a while but it should work. 

If you can't or don't want to wait, you could always treat it as a cutout.  Cut the brood from the medium frames and rubberband them to your deep frames.

Someone else may have a different option.

What ever you choose, have fun.  :grin:

Offline Alpal

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Re: Help needed to xfer bees from medium hive to long hive ...
« Reply #4 on: July 23, 2015, 11:10:08 pm »
It's so great to be able to draw on this world of experience at this site. This hobby of bee-keeping is so enticing and the fascination continues ... Thank you all for your responses!


Online Michael Bush

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Re: Help needed to xfer bees from medium hive to long hive ...
« Reply #5 on: July 24, 2015, 01:26:00 am »
>Now, I am concerned if I put medium frames into the hive designed for deep frames that the girls will maybe build more comb under the frame. Not certain.

I am.  They will.  Unless you fill that space with something.

>Perhaps if I only put the medium brood frames in and surround them with deep honey frames maybe that might work (I have two other horizontal long hives I could borrow from). Who knows?

That will help.  If you put several medium frames in a row, they may build some comb at a 45 across multiple frames.  If you have deeps with foundation between them they are more likely to extend the mediums down straight.  If you have deeps with drawn comb between them they are almost guaranteed to draw them on down in the brood portion.  In a honey section they will fatten the bottom of the deeps...

I'd put the medium box on one end of the long hive and wait for the bees to expand down into the deeps.  After they are going well in the deeps THEN put the mediums in between the deeps.


Maybe if I put the brood box above empty deep frames in the new hive they might move down. I'm not sure.
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Offline little john

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Re: Help needed to xfer bees from medium hive to long hive ...
« Reply #6 on: July 24, 2015, 04:29:01 am »
One of the problems I've found when installing frames which are too short for a cavity is, not only do the bees draw 'wild' comb beneath the shorter frame, but they occasionally build outwards from that and attach it onto the hive wall as well.
Now that may not be a problem providing you know about this before pulling that frame - but if you're not aware that this has happened, then you'll have some clearing-up to do ...

The simplest solution to the problem of short and deep frames co-existing, is to make up some simple rectangular frames which can be tie-wrapped beneath the short frames to take-up the difference in depth.

Then - even if the bees do draw drone comb within that mini-frame, and you end up binning it anyway - it's a much tidier solution to the problem.

I use such 3" deep frames beneath my standard 9" brood frames when hanging them in 14"x12" hives - so that these two sizes of frame depth effectively become interchangable thoughout the apiary.

LJ
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Offline chux

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Re: Help needed to xfer bees from medium hive to long hive ...
« Reply #7 on: July 24, 2015, 08:08:35 am »
I would put the medium frames in one end, and let the bees build comb below them, and moving on into the deep frames. But with this approach, you would need to be watchful for them attaching the comb to the sides. Not a big issue most of the time if you keep it cleaned up. 

If you really don't want them to build that comb under the frame, you could always build a short box to put in the bottom of the long hive, like a step. With this approach you would be raising the floor of the hive underneath the medium frames, to bee space. Put the box at one end of the hive, with all the medium frames above it. This would prevent the bees from building that extra comb underneath. Where the deep frames begin, the box ends. The bees will move into the deep frames and draw them out. At any point in the future, you could remove the medium frames and shorten the box, adding in more deep frames. Since the box is not attached to the bottom of the hive, it should be easy to slip in and out. Just a thought. 

Online Michael Bush

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Re: Help needed to xfer bees from medium hive to long hive ...
« Reply #8 on: July 24, 2015, 10:10:15 am »
>I would put the medium frames in one end, and let the bees build comb below them

The problem is that they often build that extra comb across several frames instead of continuing down.
My website:  bushfarms.com/bees.htm en espanol: bushfarms.com/es_bees.htm  auf deutsche: bushfarms.com/de_bees.htm  em portugues:  bushfarms.com/pt_bees.htm
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Offline HillBilly2

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Re: Help needed to xfer bees from medium hive to long hive ...
« Reply #9 on: July 24, 2015, 10:47:24 am »
Maybe I'm misreading this, you can put a box on over the long hive? Just shake all bees into the lower, use an excluder between them and brood. Should start laying in lower and finish raising brood in upper. Remove upper super when empty.

Or do a cut out. Cut out medium frame, tie it into deep frame. Couple of hours & your done.

Lots of options

Offline chux

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Re: Help needed to xfer bees from medium hive to long hive ...
« Reply #10 on: July 24, 2015, 10:57:23 am »
>The problem is that they often build that extra comb across several frames instead of continuing down.

Good point! So, maybe it would be better to raise the bottom of the hive on that end, as I suggested.

Offline Eric Bosworth

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Re: Help needed to xfer bees from medium hive to long hive ...
« Reply #11 on: July 24, 2015, 11:39:44 am »
I like HillBilly's approach... That should work.
All political power comes from the barrel of a gun. The communist party must command all the guns; that way, no guns can ever be used to command the party. ---Mao Tse Tung

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote. ---Benjamin Franklin

Offline iddee

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Re: Help needed to xfer bees from medium hive to long hive ...
« Reply #12 on: July 24, 2015, 06:04:56 pm »
Putting a medium frame between two drawn comb frames will nearly always result in a nice, straight comb under the bottom bar of the medium. I have several hives with medium frames in deeps where I find queen cells in the mediums and start a deep nuc with the frame.
"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"

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Offline Alpal

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Re: Help needed to xfer bees from medium hive to long hive ...
« Reply #13 on: July 27, 2015, 06:56:29 pm »
Thanks for the ideas. Much food for thought. With my limited experience (coming up to my first year) I have realised one thing - what I call the Rolling Stones Effect (RSE) - 'they don't always do what you want'. But I will try this time, and I might just find ...  :happy: