Eggs and larvae in super

[kittietrixie]

Hi. I posted a thread a few weeks ago about a problem I was having with an overcrowded brood box and the bees were not going into the super via the excluder. The overwhelming advice I got was to remove the excluder and replace a few days later. This I did - but the bees still failed to into the super. I removed the excluder last week and now discovered that there are eggs and larvae in the super. I have another super above this one with the excluder in - no activity there. The excluder has been used previously and the bees were able to cope with it ok then. Any advice on where to go from here would be really appreciated. Thanks again.

 

[Midland Beek]

Well, that got them into the super. Better to have some brood in your super than have your bees swarm while they delay their expansion into the super.

One line of advicce now might go like ... you have got to find the queen and confine her to the brood box with the use of the queen excluder. Note that when you inspect, she might already rather conveniently be in the brood box.

Another might say to you ... the single National hive is too small a brood area and you might want to run your bees on brood and a half, ie. one brood box plus one super as a brood area.

Note that there is a defective batch of queen excluders about sold by a large UK retailer with holes too small to allow any bees through.

Also note that your second super may be on your hive unnecessarily.

 

[Hombre]

Shake the bees from the super with the brood in into the brood box, put on the Qx and return the good super and then the super with the brood in it on top. In three weeks time the brood will all have emerged and the footfalls will certainly ensure that your supers are getting attention from the bees.

 

[Hivemaker.]

And don't forget to check the super for queen cells after eight days.

 

[BKF Admin]

And don't forget to check the super for queen cells after eight days.

ok I admit I never gave that a thought when I read the thread

Sometimes its so easy to not stop and think about what Scenarios can playout after we move things around in the hive.

 

[kittietrixie]

Thanks everybody. That is pretty much exactly what I was planning on doing. As I need a new queen, I am hoping to capture some queen cells from the brood super! Really obliged for your input.