Friday, March 29, 2013

Additional Bee Box Dilemma



Bees, bees, bees...they are on my mind day and night.  Introducing the package of bees that will be arriving next week has been in my dreams for several nights now.  I even woke 2 nights ago with, "I must feed the bees tomorrow because the weather has been wet and rainy this past week!"  I kid you not, I can't stop thinking about bees!  One thing has been on my mind for weeks now so I decided to make this post.

With the move last spring I decided to just have one colony of bees so I purchased a nuc from a local beekeeper.  Here's a quick summary of this hive: received nuc end of April with very little capped brood (I was very unhappy with this); middle of May everything looked fine; second week of June the queen had failed and I had her replaced; I fed them a lot more than usual for the entire summer because the nectar flow had mainly ended by July and the hive was really light.  I really had very little hope that this colony would make it through the winter because only 13 frames out of 20 had drawn comb, the remaining frames were still plastic foundation.  Thankfully there were about 4 frames of capped honey that I brought with me from Portland that I gave to the colony.  Somehow this colony survived with only one deep and a honey super with only 13 frames of drawn comb.  What I want to do this spring is add another deep brood box, but where should it be placed?  Should it go between the current honey super and deep, or should it go on the very bottom?  The new deep is a brand new hive body with no built foundation.  I would love to hear what other beekeepers suggest I do so please leave a message in the comment section.

This morning I picked up a large order of beekeeping supplies...enough frames and foundation for 6 more deeps.  A beekeeper can never have enough extra for possible swarms and future hives!

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