Greetings from Long Lane Honey Bee Farms also known as www.honeybeesonline.com
Today I want to share some simple tips to help you increase your chances to get your honey super foundation pulled out so you can get more honey production.
Before today’s lesson, we need your help. Today, Jon Zawislak and I will be hosting another special addition of Hive Talk, and we’d love for you to call in and ask a question between 9am-10am central time. So set your alarm to join us in a hour. Here’s how:
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LESSON 157: How To Get Honey Supers Drawn Out Faster
Soon, honey flows will diminish. I have another 3-4 weeks of strong nectar flows. Now is the time to have every super on the hive to maximize your hive’s honey production. It’s a good year and we are working hard to keep up with honey super orders. A strong hive needs two or three honey supers this time of year. But when you place a new honey super on your hive, the comb is not draw out. It’s important to speed this process up. Here’s what helps me.
1. Apply additional wax to each frame. Some people heat wax and then brush it on the foundation. I just take a big ball of wax and rub it on cold.
2. Spray each frame with sugar water with a little bit of honey-b-healthy mixed in. This will draw the bees onto the foundation.
3. The next step is something that I do, but it might be a bit risky for some. I place a brand new super between my two deep bodies. By doing this, I’m placing additional space in the middle of the brood nest to accelerate the comb being drawn out. Why is this risky? If you leave it there too long, the queen will fill it with brood. I watch it every 5 days to see how much is drawn out and if the queen is filling it up with eggs. If you want to really be creative, you can exclude your queen, using a queen excluder, to the lower deep hive body. This will slow her laying down by limiting her space and this will reduce potential varroa mite reproduction somewhat. After 5 days, you can evaluate the hive and decide if they have draw out enough combs on your super to move it up to the top, above the second deep. If not wait another 5 days. Only do this IF you have your full number of populations.
4. Finally, the biggest mistake most beginners make is the put the queen excluder below a new super for undrawn foundation. This usually limits easy access into the super and increases the time it takes to draw out the comb.
Put on as many supers as you think your bees will fill up. I like to err on the side of having too many on rather than not enough.
Thanks for joining us for another beekeeping lesson. Remember to check out our complete website at: www.honeybeesonline.com and if you can provide a link to our site from your site we always appreciate that.
Call us in an hour at our radio number above and ask your questions. See you later.
David and Sheri Burns
Long Lane Honey Bee Farms
www.honeybeesonline.com
217-427-2678 M-Thu 10am-4pm central time Fri 10-Noon