No Vacancy in Blue Hive
Today was in the 90's before 8am with clear blue skies.
I opened the hives up to see how they were doing, looking to see if the white hive was progressing any further, and if the blue colored hive was ready for a super.
White Hive:
I stood and watched the queen in the white hive lay eggs in cells which was pretty neat, and she had a good egg pattern.
There was one frame in the bottom box yet to be drawn out the rest of the way, and 6 more in the top brood box that haven't been touched yet.
I don't know if they need to be equalized, a new queen introduced or just left alone. For now I'm just leaving them alone and providing more syrup.
Blue/Purple Hive:
The blue colored hive was completely drawn out in both bottom and top brood box, and there wasn't hardly an empty cell that didn't have nectar, pollen, eggs, larva, capped brood, or capped honey in it!
Just look at this solid brood pattern!
I added a super and the bees promptly walked right up into them.
I saw lots of bees doing the waggle dance in the blue hive, so maybe there is still a little nectar out there somewhere for them to draw out the super?
After adding the super, I removed the sugar syrup jars from this hive, and moved them all to the white hive. It looks a little funny, and like overkill, but maybe the abundance of sugar syrup jars, they'll take it and finish drawing out their brood boxes.
This is the way I left them: I moved the purple (empty surround) box onto the white hive to surround the sugar jars. I added a medium blue super to the top of the blue hive and removed all of their syrup.
Side Note:
At the recent club workshop on "hive inspections" someone reported that it was OK to leave sugary syrup on the hive after adding a super.
From everything I've read, Sugar Syrup does not convert to honey, and you should remove the syrup when adding honey supers.
The suggested reasoning was that the syrup will continue to encourage them to draw out the super foundations. My concern is what if they decide to pack that syrup into the super? Then I wouldn't be able to extract, or if I do, I'd have to abandon the crop since it will contain sugar syrup.
Has anyone ever left syrup on with supers? If you have, please leave a comment below and let me know how it worked out!
I opened the hives up to see how they were doing, looking to see if the white hive was progressing any further, and if the blue colored hive was ready for a super.
White Hive:
I stood and watched the queen in the white hive lay eggs in cells which was pretty neat, and she had a good egg pattern.
There was one frame in the bottom box yet to be drawn out the rest of the way, and 6 more in the top brood box that haven't been touched yet.
I don't know if they need to be equalized, a new queen introduced or just left alone. For now I'm just leaving them alone and providing more syrup.
Blue/Purple Hive:
The blue colored hive was completely drawn out in both bottom and top brood box, and there wasn't hardly an empty cell that didn't have nectar, pollen, eggs, larva, capped brood, or capped honey in it!
Just look at this solid brood pattern!
I added a super and the bees promptly walked right up into them.
I saw lots of bees doing the waggle dance in the blue hive, so maybe there is still a little nectar out there somewhere for them to draw out the super?
After adding the super, I removed the sugar syrup jars from this hive, and moved them all to the white hive. It looks a little funny, and like overkill, but maybe the abundance of sugar syrup jars, they'll take it and finish drawing out their brood boxes.
This is the way I left them: I moved the purple (empty surround) box onto the white hive to surround the sugar jars. I added a medium blue super to the top of the blue hive and removed all of their syrup.
Side Note:
At the recent club workshop on "hive inspections" someone reported that it was OK to leave sugary syrup on the hive after adding a super.
From everything I've read, Sugar Syrup does not convert to honey, and you should remove the syrup when adding honey supers.
The suggested reasoning was that the syrup will continue to encourage them to draw out the super foundations. My concern is what if they decide to pack that syrup into the super? Then I wouldn't be able to extract, or if I do, I'd have to abandon the crop since it will contain sugar syrup.
Has anyone ever left syrup on with supers? If you have, please leave a comment below and let me know how it worked out!
Comments For This Post: (1) | Post Your Comments! Hide The Comment Form
