New to bee keeping- help please!! :)
Posted: Sun May 16, 2010 8:58 pm
Hi everyone,
I dived in at the deep end last week and claimed a swarm of bees that had arrived in a friends garden for my newly built bee hive. I went armed with a box and bee suit and only the knowledge I had gleened from some books, internet and tv. Inspite of being completely unprepared I managed to end the day with a hive full of bees and only one bee sting. The thing is that in my newbee ignorance I put a super on straight away because the swarm seemed huge and I was worried they wouldn't think they had enough space and would move on.
However, one week on I have been back to check out how they have been getting on and they have started work in the super having drawn out comb on at least 5 of the frames and with honey already in most of them to some extent. the problem is that the brood box has been left completely untouched (because they start working from the top - I knew that DOH!!) and there is no sign of the queen doing any laying - I'm guessing becuse the queen excuder is keeping her in the broody where the is no drawn out comb?
I havn't spotted the queen yet but the bees seem happy so i figure she is probably there somwhere. . .?
does anyone have any idea how I go about rectifying my mistake now? should I remove the queen excluder and accept that I'm going to have one super with larvae in it? or should I remove the frames they havn't started on yet to persuade them to work on the ones below? or remove the super completely?
any advice would be greatly appreciated!!
jo
I dived in at the deep end last week and claimed a swarm of bees that had arrived in a friends garden for my newly built bee hive. I went armed with a box and bee suit and only the knowledge I had gleened from some books, internet and tv. Inspite of being completely unprepared I managed to end the day with a hive full of bees and only one bee sting. The thing is that in my newbee ignorance I put a super on straight away because the swarm seemed huge and I was worried they wouldn't think they had enough space and would move on.
However, one week on I have been back to check out how they have been getting on and they have started work in the super having drawn out comb on at least 5 of the frames and with honey already in most of them to some extent. the problem is that the brood box has been left completely untouched (because they start working from the top - I knew that DOH!!) and there is no sign of the queen doing any laying - I'm guessing becuse the queen excuder is keeping her in the broody where the is no drawn out comb?
I havn't spotted the queen yet but the bees seem happy so i figure she is probably there somwhere. . .?
does anyone have any idea how I go about rectifying my mistake now? should I remove the queen excluder and accept that I'm going to have one super with larvae in it? or should I remove the frames they havn't started on yet to persuade them to work on the ones below? or remove the super completely?
any advice would be greatly appreciated!!
jo