Topical Tips

摘要

Up to the time of writing this beekeeping season has been good. In spite of the cold spring the bees seem to have developed well and when the warm weather came suddenly upon us the flow of nectar into the hives was very pleasing. It was important to make sure there was sufficient room, both for the bees and their floral harvest, by adding supers in good time. One of the contributory circumstances that lead to swarming is overcrowding so adding supers when needed is important. Sometimes bees are reluctant to go up into a new super, particularly if it is all wax foundation. To encourage the bees into a new super remove one of the frames with foundation from the centre and take a partly filled one from below to replace it, the removed frame of foundation if placed between two frames of built comb in the super below will usually be quickly and evenly built. If the super is the first to be added above the brood chamber and there is no partly filled frame available try to find a frame that has the wax built out or add a small feed of syrup above the new super.