Picked up 2 5-frame nucs about two months ago. This is my first time trying to bee a beekeeper. I took the 5-frame nucs and transferred them into two 10-frame deeps and added 5 empty frames to each. About a month ago, I checked on them and found that they had drawn out those five frames and were starting to fill them with honey, so I added a queen excluder and a medium super. Yesterday, I checked on them again and found that they have completely filled out those five frames with honey. No brood, no pollen, only honey ... all five frames, both hives, and the supers I added have been almost entirely ignored.
Now I'm a bit worried about them swarming because the queen is out of room. I didn't see any signs of queen cells, but my understanding is that they will start to swarm if they begin to feel cramped ... or if the queen has no place to lay more eggs.
My hope was to get 8(ish) frames of brood in those deeps and split the two hives into 4 hives, but it's still only 5 frames of mostly brood. All the new frames are 100% honey.
I'm really not sure how to proceed here. So far, the only thing I have done is replaced the plastic queen excluders with some metal ones in the hopes that the ladies will be less adverse to crossing it (oh, and I put some pollen patties on top of the inner cover to draw them up past the excluder, though now I'm thinking that they'll just put the pollen in the super where it won't be any use.)
Here are some of my thoughts on where to go from here.
Truth is that I'm really not sure what to do or even if I should do anything. I'd love to hear from some folks with some experience.
Thanks,
Eric
Now I'm a bit worried about them swarming because the queen is out of room. I didn't see any signs of queen cells, but my understanding is that they will start to swarm if they begin to feel cramped ... or if the queen has no place to lay more eggs.
My hope was to get 8(ish) frames of brood in those deeps and split the two hives into 4 hives, but it's still only 5 frames of mostly brood. All the new frames are 100% honey.
I'm really not sure how to proceed here. So far, the only thing I have done is replaced the plastic queen excluders with some metal ones in the hopes that the ladies will be less adverse to crossing it (oh, and I put some pollen patties on top of the inner cover to draw them up past the excluder, though now I'm thinking that they'll just put the pollen in the super where it won't be any use.)
Here are some of my thoughts on where to go from here.
- Go ahead and add a second deep (I really don't want to do this. I have limited resources and deeps are expensive.)
- Go ahead and harvest some of those frames and replace them with empty frames.
- Remove the queen excluders.
- Add and upper entrance so the ladies don't have to deal with the excluder to get to the super.
- Go ahead a split the hives, putting two brood frame with the old queen and three with new. (I'll purchase the queens)
Truth is that I'm really not sure what to do or even if I should do anything. I'd love to hear from some folks with some experience.
Thanks,
Eric