How to get my two hives to draw out the other frames

[tom]

Howdy All

  I have my two other hives that seem to not want to draw out the rest of the frames in the hives they are growing but they refuse to draw out the other frames to expand. And they are filling out the drawn out comb and the queens have hardly any room to lay what can i do and not mess with the brood that is in the center.

Tom

[Hi-Tech]

How many frames on the sides have not been drawn? How many hive bodies? Is there only a single hive body?

[pdmattox]

I am a newbee so you might want to get other opinions, but what i'm doing is taking the frames i want to draw out faster is to put them in between 2 that are already drawn for example; drawn frame, empty,drawn, empty, drawn.

[tom]

Hello

   Hi-Tech both hives are single body and they each has about five each that has not been drawn and i am in the middle of sourwood flow and i want to try to get them to draw out them all so they can at least have enough to make it thru the winter even thou i will feed them in the late fall so they do have enough.

Tom

[IndianaBrown]

... taking the frames i want to draw out faster is to put them in between 2 that are already drawn for example; drawn frame, empty,drawn, empty, drawn.

Pdmattox, I am new this year myself.  I did exactly what you described with my nuc about a week after I first installed it in a deep, but the experienced folks here seemed horrified by that.  :shock:  It is not a good idea to break up the brood nest all at once like that.  On the other hand it seemed to work out ok in my case, although at first the bees drew the top (honey area) of the nuc frames out a little deeper, part way into the beespace shared by adjoining empty frames.  But with some judicious scraping during inspections I am gradually getting that cleaned up.  

Note that alternating every other frame with an empty is an accepted method for getting bees to fill HONEY supers, (look up checkerboarding.)  Just be carefull with the brood itself.

Tom, from the reading I have done, it is considered ok to move one outermost (usually honey filled) drawn frame out one position, then put an empty frame in where it was.  Doing this once a week or so should eventually get them to use the whole box.  This is the method I am using with the feral swarm I hived.  

With my ferals, I probably put on a honey super a little too early.  They built up the first 6 frames amazingly fast and were starting on their 7th deep frame so I went ahead and put the super on.  At that point they started drawing and putting honey in the super, above the brood frames they were using, but stopped spreading out horizontally.  The one-frame-at-a-time spreading method is slow, but it is working well for me so far.

I hope that you can learn from my mistakes.  Considering my bumbling and all the storms we have been having here so far this year, I am glad that my bees are doing as well as they are.  :)

[Hi-Tech]

<<<<<Tom, from the reading I have done, it is considered ok to move one outermost (usually honey filled) drawn frame out one position, then put an empty frame in where it was. Doing this once a week or so should eventually get them to use the whole box. This is the method I am using with the feral swarm I hived.
>>>>>

This is what I would do... If they need comb, they will build it. Are they finding plenty of nectar? If not, a little 22% sugar water may help...

[Brian D. Bray]

It is generally not a good idea to break up the brood chamber, but like all general rules there are exceptions.  If the bees are predominately on one side of the box taking the frame 2nd frame from that side and moving it to the other side of the brood chamber and putting a frame of foundation in its place so that you have one drawn frame, one frame foundation, and then your other drawn frames to the foundation on the other side is ok way of doing it.
But I have to ask--how long did you feed your bees or are you still doing it?  Over feeding the bees will cause them to fill the brood area with honey thereby depriving the queen from space to lay eggs with which to grow more bees--the exact opposite of what is needed.  The bees usually wont build more comb than they have bees to cover it.  
Give them a chance to raise brood and they will then begin to draw more comb to fill the space under the new bees.  Otherwise you have a stagnant hive (no growth).

[Michael Bush]

>I am a newbee so you might want to get other opinions, but what i'm doing is taking the frames i want to draw out faster is to put them in between 2 that are already drawn for example; drawn frame, empty,drawn, empty, drawn

IF the hive is strong you can put a COUPLE of empty frames in brood nest.  Every other frame, even in a strong hive, will stress them very much.  In a weak hive I would never put any empty frames in the brood nest.

Empty frames between brood combs is a wonderful way to get nice straight, comb and to prevent swarming.  But if there aren't enough bees to fill the gap then the brood will suffer.

[tom]

Hello

   Both hives are strong and growing but they are not expanding the secong hive was gotten the same time the first hive was on april 12th they both were packages. The second one lost their queen so i got a replacement queen and the third one was from a five frame nuc which i paid only $20.00 for and they are both strong not like my first one but they both have plenty of bees and i took a frame of sealed brood from my first hive and gave it to my second one to boost them up which it did but they will not expand the two are working well the second one is working like my biggest hive but the third one is not working as hard. But my problem is they will not draw out the rest of the foundation that came with them and has already been in the hive.

Tom

[Brian D. Bray]

So you say they are strong but not expanding.  It sounds as if the hives might be honey bound, which is a term used to described a hive where the bees have filled in the brood chamber with honey stores.  The bees are then in a mode where they cannot readily increase the number of bees in the hive (required for increasing the size of the hive) and may be hard put to maintain its current size.  It is a condition that is often the result of overfeeding or where the comb building can't keep up with the honey flow and either case the empty brood cells get filled with honey.  
Check your hive to see if it's honey bound and then return to the god of bee knowledge we call Beemaster's for more direction.

[tom]

Hi

  I was going tto check my hives but it started to rain and boy is it raining here in my part of virginia. It may help with the sourwood flow as for the two smaller hives i am hearing a small roar that i only heard from my biggest hive but i do want to get in there and see how much work they have done it seems that in my second one the queen stops when we had no rain she is carniolan but my strong hive is the same and she never stopped laying it seems she picked up more. The third hive is the hot one which they seem to be not working as hard as the other weak one but when the rain stops and it clears off i will be doing some work with them.

Tom

[Finsky]

Hello

 both hives are single body and they each has about five each that has not been drawn

Problem is that colony is too small draw up foundations. 5 frames occupied and 5 frames without bee cover. In this situation 5 empty frames only makes harm to colony build up. You should have middle wall in boxes.

and i am in the middle of sourwood flow and i want to try to get them to draw out them all

You cannot make them draw more than they are able.

No worry about winter. Colonies will grow enough and when you feed them with sugar they will be OK.




so they can at least have enough to make it thru the winter even thou i will feed them in the late fall so they do have enough.

Tom[/quote]

[Finsky]

I am a newbee so you might want to get other opinions, but what i'm doing is taking the frames i want to draw out faster is to put them in between 2 that are already drawn for example; drawn frame, empty,drawn, empty, drawn.

They make not faster this way. If colony is small, they make just as much they can keep warm. Braking their system is bad idea after these 45 beekeeping years.  Colony can expand when they get new bees. It takes about 4 weeks.

[Michael Bush]

http://www.beesource.com/pov/dick/simple.htm
http://www.bushfarms.com/beeslazy.htm#stopfightingbees