Crammed Hive In One Week! Yikes!

[Jen]

Good Night Nurse! It's been one week since I put the top med on. The hive is already stuffed.

I do have one deep with empty pulled frames left, maybe two. You know I want to go all meds, but should I go ahead and put this deep on for honey? with a queen excluder, or not?

from bottom up, it's a deep, med, med

[Ray4852]

Yes I would use the deep and queen excluder for your honey. Do you have any swarm traps up and ready to go. This hive needs more room.

[Jen]

After this deep goes on I will have only one more deep left, could use that one for a trap. Haven't had time to build any yet. I may have to go north 1 1/2 hours and buy some premade for this hive.

This top med is full of nectar all the way across, a little brood in the center not much, and pollen. What if I take all the meds down and place this deep on top of the first deep.... Then place the meds back on the two stack deeps? I can lift a deep 'up' better than lifting a deep 'down.'

Then I could put a queen excluder under this top med, and add another med for honey production.

I could also to a split

[LogicalBee]

Agreed that baby is primed to swarm sooner than later!  Keep an eye out for swarm cells and maybe do something to open up the brood nest a little.

Good looking hive Jen.  Looks like you’re an excellent bee keeper.   

I know all mediums is a nice idea, and I do run all medium nucs, but there is something about deep brood frames which seems to work pretty good; even if just on the bottom of stack. 

I like the deeps, but unless you got a strong 18 year old around the house, I would sure never want to lift one full of honey again.  Can we say hernia…someplace…discs, gut, etc.  Yeah, you could remove deep frames one by one to alleviate the weight, but that’s a pain too.

What's up with the weak looking hive on the left?  Maybe steal a medium from that for a honey super and put your other deep under the weak hive for brood?  Just another of the myriad of options in beekeeping. 

[Jen]

'What's up with the weak looking hive on the left?'

Hey Logic, that might be a good temp solution for tonight, it's going to rain tomorrow, would like for those bees to be inside. Actually both of the others have new meds on, I'll check them out and see if there is room in them to bring one over to this mother hive, until I decide what I want to do. THanks 

[iddee]

You don't say if you have new mediums or not. Now would be the perfect time to get a medium of foundation drawn out.

[Jen]

You mean get foundation drawn out on this bulging hive? Just got back in from moving a med from the center hive over to bulging mother hive. Found enough empty or slightly drawn frames

No, I don't have any meds left, only two deeps with pulled frames from last year. Time to get the carpenters apron on.. Pronto!

I followed LogicalBee's suggestion. It was late evening and maybe not the perfect temperature but no wind.  I opened up the other two top meds to see if there was a way to gather enough empty foundation to fill the med in the middle and give it to bulging mother hive. Turns out I was able to assemble enough empty and some pulled frames from those hives. Put the med on mother hive with a queen excluder under it. I don't know if I need a queen excluder, but I can alway take it off.

I feel like it's bought me some time to get a swarm trap up, and get lumber to build more meds. I hope 

[Yankee11]

Did you locate queen before putting excluder on?

[Jen]

I searched well for her as I examined the frames and loaded the med. She has a green mark so it's easy to see her when I'm in that hive. Most of these frames weren't even pulled yet, so there weren't very many bees on them. I sure was imagining a possible armageddon tho.

Do you think it's okay to have the excluder on?

[iddee]

Looks good. Check in 3 or 4 days. If they are using it, fine. If not, remove excluder for a week and then put it back.

[Jen]

Okay.

Next step. Would you pull a nuc from this hive? Or a split to give the artificial swarm effect? Or set up a swarm trap? Today there is still lots of bees out on the front of the hive, it's raining today. I know they are still outside because there is so many bees and too much heat. I'm not worried about the rain, but wondering why the bees aren't going back in.

[iddee]

Contrary to many on here, I never split other than for increase. If I don't want more hives, I just keep making room.  If it goes 6 boxes, fine.

So, for more hives, pull a nuc.
For only one more hive,split.
For swarm control, let the others answer.

Don't take this wrong. There's nothing wrong with doing it for swarm control, it's just that I don't do it.

[Jen]

Okay. That sounds good actually. But I'll listen to the others as well, I always do. Thanks Iddee 

[riverbee]

i do as iddee does,
"I never split other than for increase. If I don't want more hives, I just keep making room."

and as for increase and swarm management, again i do the same, either light divides, or a complete divide.
if i have a booming colony or colonies, and i don't want swarming, i remove just enough frames to makeup a nuc or two.
i don't do complete divides on strong colonies, it takes away from the honey production.

[Yankee11]

Sorry Jen, I miread your message about the queen excluder. I though you put the new medium in the middle of hive with bee above and below with a excluder. Was worried you could have trapped queen above the excluder.

If its the the first super and its just foundation, I put it on without the excluder. Just seems like they don't like to go up into it empty like that. Once they start drawing the wax then I will put the excluder on.

[LazyBkpr]

You could equalize the hives as well. Pull some brood and put it in the weaker hives. That will HOLD your strong hive where it is, but will increase your weaker hives strength.

  If you have five or six frames of brood, steal two frames to put in the other hives, if you have eight to ten, or even more frames of brood, steal 4 frames to put in the other hives.  Just remember, that is going to be a lot of bees when they emerge. Your other hives will be boosted a LOT, while you try to maintain the big hive where it is.
   I would also be pulling drawn frames from that hive..  Meaning, frames that have nothing much in them YET, but drawn comb, and replace with a foundation frame for them to draw. Keeping the bees employed, and having room to expand with more boxes goes a long ways toward swarm prevention...  But, it will impact honey production..  that is where a little experience pays off, knowing how far to go depending on the strength of the hive.

[Jen]

Yankee, that's real close to what Iddee was saying as well

"Looks good. Check in 3 or 4 days. If they are using it, fine. If not, remove excluder for a week and then put it back."

We are headed for rain after tomorrow, I think I'll take it off tomorrow let the bees get up there and start pulling and check back in about 4 days when the rain clears. And Frankly, they got right up into the med just below and have it almost pulled in a week for crying out loud. So, I 'think' they go up.