Demaree advice

[badger65]

OK the order is from bottom up.

Brood box
QE
super
super
QE
Crown board
Brood box
Crown board
Roof

The queen is in the bottom box.

I did the split on Thursday and put a new frame of eggs in the top box. I have looked today and there are no signs of any QC building in the top box and the bees a getting smaller in number as the flying ones move out. The eggs are now larve.

I have put an empty drawn frame into the bottom box this evening to try and get more eggs to put upstairs.

Questions are:

1. Am I doing it correctly.
2. How long should I leave the drawn frame in before I transfer it upstairs.

Thanks

 

[chrismcd]

Where is the brood?

I am thinking of doing this, so am keen to learn.

AFAIK, you have done everything right. But, did you leave the old queen on a single frame of oldish brood and moved all the rest upstairs?

If the nurse bees have not all moved upstairs there will not be the break in the dosage of queen substance that will start them feeding up new queen cells.

Do the nurse bees have enough food to produce enough royal jelly?

 

[badger65]

I mved 3 full frames of brood upstairs and one of eggs. I added two full frames of ivy honey. Why do I need to move all nurse bees upstairs?

 

[Tom Bick]

Some information on this thread

http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17614

 

[simoncav]

In my view, the order should be Brood, QE, Super, Brood Box, Crown Board, Roof. Otherwise, how can the nurse bees smell the eggs and cover the emerging brood? I would also consider putting a feeder on top to ensure that the top bees have a close supply of food.

Once you do get sealed Queen cells, you can use a cloake board or similar to seal the top brood box off from the bottom and create a second entrance at 180 degrees to the one below if you want to raise new Queens...

 

[MuswellMetro]

foundation and one brood+queen downstairs seperateed by two supers otherwise you can also remove all stores and dummy the upper box down to brood frames only in congested nuc size area


with more brood downstairs you are likely to induce a lack of queen substance throughout the hive rather than just the top box...so get Queen cells downstairs...and no idea why the Nuc dummy down works better