Question on slow bee's

[harvey]

Not sure the bee's are slow I just don't know what to expect.  I have seen on here where people are already pulling honey from first year packages.

I have had the bees about a month now.  Last week they had most of the frames in the bottom deep brood box either full of capped brood or honey that was not capped.  Probably more syrup than anything.  The bottom brood box was full of frames that had comb on them from before the bee's. The top box is full of Dadent frames with the plastic duragilt foundation.  They had not started pulling comb on these yet however they did have some bur comb on top of the bottom frames.  I am going to wait another week before I inspect to see how far they have gotten.  Most if not all of the capped brood I saw should be hatched by then.  I have been feeding a 1 to 1 sugar / water to them.  They are storing that also.  The last three days here have been cloudy and rainy.

Will the bees work inside the hive on rainy days making comb?   Should I still be feeding?  This was a small swarm.  How long till they start on the new frames?  Probably no honey for me this year huh?  I am watching a whole field of purple thistle flower and thinking none of it will end up as honey.

[iddee]

>>>>How long till they start on the new frames?  <<<<

On starter strips or pure wax foundation, as soon as they have something to store in it.

On dura-gilt or plastic foundation, only when they absolutely have to.

[harvey]

should I think of replacing the duragilt with something else?   These Frames are wood with plastic centers covered in wax.  Are they no good?

[sparks]

I personally would replace the dura"guilt".  I have used (as a personal experiment) most every type of foundation I could get my hands on and the bees have decided.  They will build out a cut comb starter strip about as fast as anything. Next would be wired wax followed by plasticell and lastly duragilt.  Of course in my honey supers I would use a cut comb foundation just because I am currently doing only crush and strain.  I am really new at this but this is what I have seen so far.  Just my $.02.

Chuck

[AEDENBURN]

I have 5 hives in Burt/Montrose they seem to be pretty slow this year, we have really not had that many good days for the bees. One of my hives now have one super on it with most of the comb drawn out, but very little honey. These were all packages installed in March. I think if you just wait, you should see them start to produce by late in the summer.

[harvey]

I am not sure what is going on inside the hive right now and I plan on giving them another week before I bother them.  They are working the thistle like crazy though.  Kinda cool.  In fifteen years of living here we have not seen honey bees.  This year this swarm decided to set up camp in the orchard.  I put them in a hive box and now there seems to be honey bee's everywhere.  I am going to leave the thistle till after it is done flowering.  There is almost three acreas of it!  Then I will mow it down.  Maybe it will come back and flower again this year?   I just looked in the catalog.  The foundation I have is plasticell that was coated in bee's wax.  Maybe that is better?

[MustbeeNuts]

go with wired wax, I have tried duragilt, not to good of returns, and plasticell, bees wouldn't even wax it up. I have some two years old and the bees won't touch it. My bees have now 2 supers on top, of three hive bodies on most, some only have two hive bodies, I have six splits from May15th, they have pulled two hive bodies now and I will be adding supers in a week, I'll catch the fall flow and we are still in the flow here now. Sumac is just kicking in.