Adding the next box to your hive requires careful planning. Once you install your package of bees or nuc, your bees will begin to consume nectar from flowers or consume sugar water if you feed them. They will begin to produce wax from their wax glands and add it to your frames of foundation, drawing the foundation out to become drawn comb. Bees need to consume 8-11 pounds of nectar to produce just 1 pound of wax.
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When you first install your package or nuc, you will only want to use one deep hive body. Do not use more than one box. If you use more, this can slow down the bee’s progress in drawing out comb and give extra, unprotected room for pests to hide in corners, like wax moth or small hive beetles. But the big question is how long should you wait until you add the second box. This applies whether you are using deep hive bodies for the brood area or medium sized boxes. Add your next box once the bees have drawn out 5-7 combs in their first box. How long this will takes depends upon the weather conditions and your individual bees. Inspect every two weeks to monitor your hive’s progress.
After you have placed your second hive body on, wait until it has 5-7 drawn comb with bees on the comb and then add your super. When adding your super, it is a good idea NOT to put a queen excluder on under undrawn foundation. So first, place your super of new, undrawn frames on the hive and wait until the bees and started working a couple of frames and have drawn out one or two frames. Then, add your queen excluder under your honey super.
However, check each super frame to ensure the queen has not made her way into the super. If she has simply pick her up by her wings and release her between two frames in the deep hive body below then add your queen excluder, placing the super above the queen excluder. If you do not want to handle your queen, try gently bumping the super frame she is on, shaking her into the deep hive body. But, I bet you will not see her up in the honey super if you catch the super with only one or two drawn comb.
Continue to add supers using this same idea, but be sure to wait until 5-7 frames are drawn out then add another super. I am frequently asked if the second honey super should be placed on top of the existing super or below it. Either way works. However, I prefer to place additional supers on top of existing supers. The filled super above the two deep brood nest area acts as a queen excluder. The queen seldom crosses the honey barrier of a full super. So by adding addition supers above a full one, I do not have to use a queen excluder. I have so much more informative beekeeping advice in my ONLINE BEEKEEPING COURSE.
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FAQs
Adding a second box provides sufficient extra volume to delay swarming by a month or so. Larger brood boxes - Commercial beekeepers often keep their bees in larger boxes than hobbyists.
What happens if you add a second brood box too soon? ›
If another box is placed on top the hive or under the hive, the bees will do one of two things, 1) leave it alone, or 2) their population will thin and disperse into the new space leaving the clustering bees that were caring for young to prepare this new space or clean it up.
Where to add a second brood box? ›
If the colony has a lot of bees, I might have the top box as 2 brood plus one of foundation plus 2 more of brood. This gives instant warm space for the bees to draw comb and doesn't split the brood nest as the queen can travel from, say, top left then down to the lower box and then up to top right.
Should I add a second brood box or a super? ›
Do not use more than one box. If you use more, this can slow down the bee's progress in drawing out comb and give extra, unprotected room for pests to hide in corners, like wax moth or small hive beetles.
Should I use 2 brood boxes? ›
“If you want to do the approach of minimum hive numbers and maximum management, then a single brood box is the way to go. However, if you want to be able to manage a larger number of hives with less input into each, then a double brood box will be much better,” says Dr Mark Goodwin.
What temperature kills brood? ›
1. The brood will die if the body temperature exceeds 960F. 2. Beeswax comb will start to get soft and collapse when 1040F ambient temperature is exceeded.
Will bees move honey out of brood box? ›
Yes, they will if the queen needs the room. It's very slow though, and they don't move capped honey. If your queen is getting honey-bound, the easiest thing to do is just move some of the honey frames and replace them with empty frames of drawn comb.
How many frames of honey should be in a brood box? ›
Pollinators, bee breeders and many hobbyists also usually utilize all 10 frames. Using 10 frames allows 10% more capacity for brood laying than 9 frames would. At Wildflower Meadows, since we are more focused on queen and bee breeding than honey production, we prefer to use 10 frames per box.
How many honey supers should I add? ›
You can add as many supers on your hives as the bees can fill. It's important that honey supers are added when the nectar flow is heavy to give the bees room to store honey and to prevent overcrowding inside the hive.
How long does it take a hive to fill a brood box? ›
They're all geared up to do their work swarming, and they can build comb very quickly and fill out a whole box in a week or so. Look at that, the bees are coming home.
In a single box, they keep their cluster tight, and have plenty of population packed around the winter brood nest. This tight space also keeps the bees relatively compressed around the entrance, affording them better protection against robber bees and other pests.
How to prevent a hive from swarming? ›
The bees will draw comb very quickly with brand new cells for the queen to lay in, and that's, that's the primary trigger for preventing swarming. So if you're not going to take a split, then do that, add some fresh frames in the middle. Or add another brood box or another super, if you want to do that.
How to split a hive to prevent swarming? ›
Open the hive and remove two frames containing brood of all stages and two frames containing honey and pollen. Shake the bees off the frames and place in a box to the side. Fill the remainder of the new box with empty frames, ideally with already drawn comb.
Will adding supers prevent swarming? ›
Many beekeepers think that simply adding a super will keep their honey bees from swarming in the spring, but this is not always the case. While adding a super does provide additional space for honey storage and aids in reducing hive congestion, it has a negligible effect on preventing reproductive swarming.
