Progress

[drgenegarris]

I am concerned or vexed by my small bee ranch's progress.

My hive has 3 deep hive bodies.  The last one was installed over a month ago.  The other boxes are loaded with brood, honey, and pollen.  The bees have not drawn out any of the foundation that is in the top box.

Do I need to do anything?

If I placed the top box on the bottom would that help?

Any suggestions are appreciated.

[drobbins]

Gene,

I think we've just gotten to the time of year when they slow down on brood rearing and there's no nectar coming in, so the just don't need anymore space. You might try taking a frame or 2 of honey and putting it in your upper box and putting the empty frames from that box  where you took the honey from.  I think that encourages em because they want to eliminate the empty space it their brood nest so now they have a reason to do the work.

Dave

[thegolfpsycho]

If your going to bait them up with frames of honey, make sure it's capped.  They have a real tendency to overdraw uncapped honey into the space the foundation would occupy.  You can end up with a couple 15 lbs frames of honey, and a bunch of chewed up foundation.

You can pull the outside frames in your boxes up, kick the next frames outside, and add foundation in there.  Putting it into the broodnest will usually get them going on it if they have some nectar coming in.  You can even checkerboard it throughout , opening up the broodnest and relieving congestion.  Remember.  If they aren't making honey, getting them to draw wax can be pain.