Natural Beekeeping International Forum

[AugustC]

I have recently housed what appears to be a prime swarm and they have messed up their comb building on frames (or at least I have as I didn't attach the starter strips properly). They were in a 6 frame nuc. They are now in a 12 frame national brood.
Order:
empty frame
4 frame mess
empty frame
mostly built frame
empty frame
partially built frame
empty frame
dummy board
empty frame

The hive has an ecofloor, overcovered with varroa mesh, and a fully insulated overlapping roof. There are (for my experience) a lot of bees in this for the amount of comb. They have been there for no more than a week and half maximum. I am thinking the easiest way of sorting this out would be to put another brood underneath (this time with properly attached starter strips) and let them build down and put stores in the top brood box. Would this work or am I setting them an impossible task for this time of year.
locality info: Poppies on their way out Blackberries on their way in. Hives surrounded by lots of brambles. A number of large lime trees in the village about to come into bloom. Some lavender about, still in bloom.

[zaunreiter]

Move all empty frames out to the sides of the broodnest or you will end up with a real mess.

Do not interweave empty frames between brood combs. Number one rule.

[AugustC]

Ok Bernhard will do. This has worked on my other framed hive, but they did have nice straight comb to start with.

My main question is whether the nadiring another brood box would work or am i setting them up to fail by giving them too much to achieve before winter?

[Dexter's shed]

yup, no point having a frame behind a dummy board, I'd move all good partial frames to one end, then those four messed up ones, cut the comb out and set it straight using elastic bands, then your empty frames, if theres not a lot of stores, stick a feeder on top with 1;1 sugaer syrup, to help them with new comb building

[johno]

[AugustC]

I am afraid there isn't much to see. It just looks like a deep hive stand.
I made a box out of 110mm wide, 22mm thick wood. The bottom has 10mm mesh to allow excess moisture to escape. This is filled with woodchips. Then there is a standard varroa mesh on top of that. The varroa mesh isn't essential, I put it on so they don't build comb down in to the ecofloor as the woodchips rot down. I think I will make a few bee sized holes in the mesh so they can get down there and patrol the full hive environment. Oh .. and it has four legs

I will be doing an ecofloor for my warré at some point. I am thinking all i really need to do is have some breeze block stood on their sides making a square to stand the hive on and fill the area in the middle with woodchips. Not sure it needs to be on legs at all. We have very sandy soil and as a result zero flooding so I think this should be ok.