Why won't they use the Super?

My only colony is a swarm from June last year, housed in a 14x12 brood box. Toward the end of last season I put a super on top but they did not move in and draw the foundation. I wrapped the frames and left them in my unheated garage over winter. Two weeks ago I put the Super with a QX, above the BB but only a few bees moved up.

After a couple of days I removed the QX and that appeared to solve the problem – the bees moved up in numbers. I had a look yesterday and the queen was up in the super though I saw no eggs. I moved her back in the BB, reinstalled the QX and had a good look at the Super frames. Some had areas where the foundation had been draw but there were two areas where wild comb had been made vertically between adjacent foundation. Why would they do that when there’s perfectly good foundation ready to be drawn?

I left it yesterday with the QX back in position but when I checked today, there were very few bees in the Super. Why is the QX presenting such a barrier? Is there anything I can do to make the Super more attractive. Is the old foundation (from last year) part of the problem? I’m worried that if they don’t move up and start using the Super as they should, the lack of space downstairs might precipitate early swarming.



CVB

it might be that the QX has been cut badly, where is it from?

This often happens, sometimes a different excluder solves the problem. It also helps if you can put a frame with nectar or honey in the super as they are more willing to move up then. Since this is your only hive and you have foundation in the super I would leave the QE off until you have a fair amount of comb in the super.

Don't panic if the Queen starts to lay in there as brood is also very good to keep bees in a super.

Once they are fully at home in the super try and make sure the Queen is down in the BB and put the excluder back on. Any brood will hatch in time and the bees should fill the empty cells with stores.

Good luck I hope they start moving up soon!

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk

Is the foundation stale? Are the frames correctly spaced? A blast with a hair dryer (away from the hive!) may help to freshen it up and encourage them.

dpearce4 said:

it might be that the QX has been cut badly, where is it from?

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Can't recall who I bought it from - it was last year via the internet I think. It is the type that a folded metal frame around the edge. I could get my calipers out and check the bar spacing - what should the gap be?

CVB

CVB

Strongly suggest you keep a QE in place...they'll move up when they're ready!

What I did, was, spray the wax frames in the super with some sugar water. They were up straight away & still drawing it out.
If your comb was old & hard, you can also run hair dryer over them to bring them back.
But try spraying lightly with sugar water, worked well for me.
Hope this helps
Sharon

dpearce4 said:

it might be that the QX has been cut badly, where is it from?

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Some queen excluders have the wrong spaces, so the bees can't get through them. Some imported ones are worse than useless, and there were some plastic ones sold by he big suppliers a couple of years that were no good.

ellypatt said:

Are the frames correctly spaced?

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This

Have you considered that tney might just not want any extra space? They will not build new comb, costing resources if it is not needed. Bees are not that stupid!

It should make diddly squat difference whether the Q/E is there of not and anyone who suggests there must be a Q/E in place is not a real beekeeper.

Warre never used them, and neither do some others. I rarely bother. I use them to clear brood from upper boxes, that is all.

If the Q/E was faulty, the bees would have been trapped above, as well as being excluded from the super.

Try a contact feeder with some honey from the frames over the top of the super. If they can get through they will take it.

ellypatt said:

Are the frames correctly spaced? .. . .

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The frame spacing is determined by a 10-frame castellated runner so that should not be a problem. Tomorrow I'll try the hair-dryer trick and some sugar water spray.

Anybody know the recommended gap/spaces for queen excluders?

CVB

Why would they do that when there’s perfectly good foundation ready to be drawn?

Your ten frames in an eleven frame box will not help, where the extra combs are concerned. Try getting foundation drawn with just nine or even eight and yo would likely get loads more extra comb drawn! The problem will likely be exacerbated if the foundation is stale or contains other waxes than that of bees (like cheap chinese imports)

Use eleven frames in an eleven frame box. They were designed for that. In fact, I often start with twelve and reduce as they draw out the comb.

oliver90owner said:

Why would they do that when there’s perfectly good foundation ready to be drawn?

Your ten frames in an eleven frame box will not help, where the extra combs are concerned. Try getting foundation drawn with just nine or even eight and yo would likely get loads more extra comb drawn! The problem will likely be exacerbated if the foundation is stale or contains other waxes than that of bees (like cheap chinese imports)

Use eleven frames in an eleven frame box. They were designed for that. In fact, I often start with twelve and reduce as they draw out the comb.

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And this

If they need extra space they will soon build comb, you could also try a slab of insulation above crownboard

charlievictorbravo said:

... had a good look at the Super frames. Some had areas where the foundation had been draw but there were two areas where wild comb had been made vertically between adjacent foundation. Why would they do that when there’s perfectly good foundation ready to be drawn?

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This suggests that the super frame spacing is rather wide.

Your later post says you have 10 SN1 frames on castellations.
Narrower helps get them started in the right direction!
I've taken to using hoffmans in supers (SN5 for me, but SN4 similarly), and starting them on rails (rather than castellations) 12 to a National box - yes they will fit, when new and clean. And then moving them onto 10 to a box castellations (to fatten the combs) after the bees have got started on them.
Hoffman shallows also have the advantage that you can put the odd one into the brood box for a day or two to get the bees started on drawing it out.
If you have SN1 frames, you may find a couple of dozen of "hoffman converter clips" to be a good investment of £5 or so, to help get frames started. And a pair of rails to convert one of your shallow boxes is going to cost you £2 or less.

Fresh foundation is more attractive than old stuff. Yes you can freshen it up with a hairdryer to the point that it smells nice again - BUT - I wouldn't do this after putting it into frames (better flat and supported) let alone after the bees have started drawing it out.
Syrup spray is well worth a go.

New boxes are unattractive to the bees. No bad thing to put any other brand new box (with frames) UNDER the brood box before you need to use it - so that (even if they do nothing about drawing it out) they have used it as a passageway and consequently it smells like part of their hive by the time you need to put it into proper service as a honey crop super. Oh, and it also provides some extra volume to the hive, so that the bees don't have to be so crowded (thereby potentially reducing a potential swarm pressure).

I'd take the QX out for another couple of days.

BTW, I think that the (relatively expensive) wood-framed rigid wire QXs are well worth the money. The bees don't mind them much, and the beespace beneath makes for much less inspection hassle from brace comb and prop. And less hassle means the bees aren't so upset.
Similarly, a clear (no-hole) coverboard allows you to see what is happening in the top super without smoking and opening up completely.
Good investments!

charlievictorbravo said:

My only colony is a swarm from June last year, housed in a 14x12 brood box. …

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It is because I have 14x12s that I have SN5 (rather than SN4) shallows. The difference is the topbar. The type 5 uses the same wider topbar as the 14x12 brood frame. So only the sidebars are different between brood and super frames - simpler stock-keeping!

I do also have some Manleys in some supers. They use the same topbar too.

charlievictorbravo said:

My only colony is a swarm from June last year, housed in a 14x12 brood box. Toward the end of last season I put a super on top but they did not move in and draw the foundation. I wrapped the frames and left them in my unheated garage over winter. Two weeks ago I put the Super with a QX, above the BB but only a few bees moved up.

After a couple of days I removed the QX and that appeared to solve the problem – the bees moved up in numbers. I had a look yesterday and the queen was up in the super though I saw no eggs. I moved her back in the BB, reinstalled the QX and had a good look at the Super frames. Some had areas where the foundation had been draw but there were two areas where wild comb had been made vertically between adjacent foundation. Why would they do that when there’s perfectly good foundation ready to be drawn?

I left it yesterday with the QX back in position but when I checked today, there were very few bees in the Super. Why is the QX presenting such a barrier? Is there anything I can do to make the Super more attractive. Is the old foundation (from last year) part of the problem? I’m worried that if they don’t move up and start using the Super as they should, the lack of space downstairs might precipitate early swarming.



CVB

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Hi,
Except technical problems it may be different reason...swarming mood. Ones bees are in the swarm mood they will not go up to super as they no bother to move crop above the nest. All is stored in the brood chamber to have this ready before travel to new place.

do you have a flow on?
how many frames of brood do you have below?
foundation could've been refreshed with hairdryer before reuse or as above sugar syrup.
often QE needs to be left off for a few days to get bees up.

Bart,

I think on this timescale, there would likely have been queen cells by now, if they were in swarming mode.

RAB

Thanks for the Observations

Thanks everybody for the useful observations, especially Itma for his thoughtful views.
Today, I had to do some babysitting so did not have time to do all I wanted to but:

+ I ran the boss's hairdryer over the foundation that had not been attempted to be drawn
+ I sprayed the foundation with some sugary water


I'm now considering the question of frame spacing. I think I'll take a castellated runner (off a spare Super) and turn it upside down and re-attach it so that the Hoffman frames can be placed closer together then move the existing frames into the adjusted Super, fill it with an extra frame and switch it for the existing Super with a 10-frame castellated runner.

I've looked at my other Queen Excluder (QX) of the same manufacture as the one in the hive. I carefully measured to gaps of 12.5% of the openings with a digital caliper and found an average gap of 4.07mm and a standard deviation of 0.091mm. This means that 95% of the gaps are in the range 3.89 to 4.25mm. I don't know enough about manufacturing tolerances to know whether these figures are good or bad but Dave Cushman gives gap figures of 4.14mm, 4.22mm, 4.38mm and 4.30mm - Beesource suggests a gap of 4.5mm so I'm wondering if the gaps on my QX are a bit on the small side - any thoughts?

While I was looking on the Dave Cushman site, I saw a plain plywood QX made with either 12mm circular holes or 9mm wide slots around the outer edge. I could adapt one of my clear crownboards if they are believed to work - has anybody made one of these? They seem to work on the principle that the queen rarely if ever moves far away from the centre of the brood nest. Is it worth a try?

CVB