Brood box is full, eight of ten frames wall to wall brood and stores, and there is clearly a flow on because the brood box gained weight. Put a super of fresh foundation on four weeks ago with a queen excluder. The bees walk around on it and have drawn maybe two centimetres of comb on one middle frame. What stops them going up?
Bees are reluctant to cross an excluder onto bare foundation, especially plastic. The usual fix is to give them a reason: move one drawn frame up from the brood box into the middle of the super and drop an empty frame into the gap. Once there is drawn comb up there they treat the super as part of the nest and the rest follows quickly. If you have no drawn frames at all, take the excluder off for a week and let them start it, then put it back once they have committed.
Plastic works fine once it is waxed properly, but the factory coating is thin. Melt a little clean beeswax and paint a thin extra layer on with a cheap brush. It is the single highest return trick I know for getting a super drawn.
It is plastic foundation. So it might just be that they dislike it?
One more possibility, less pleasant: if they are congested downstairs and refusing to expand upwards, keep an eye out for swarm cells. Sometimes the refusal to go up is a signal, not a preference.
Check the brood box is genuinely full, not full-looking. If there are two outside frames of untouched foundation down there they will always finish those before going upstairs.
@chmod_confused · 3mo ago · 2 replies
Drawing comb is expensive for them, roughly six to eight kilos of honey per kilo of wax by the numbers people quote. If the flow is only strong enough to fill what they have, they will not spend that. Weigh whether they are actually storing surplus or just keeping pace with the brood.
Reply
Report
@pourover_petra · 3mo ago
Good point. A colony rearing lots of brood in June can consume nearly everything coming in and look like a flow from outside the hive.
Reply
Report