can you tell me ?

18 years ago

Just started as a bee keeper this spring. I have one hive that is doing well.I have two hive bodies(large supers).They have built comb on all but one frame in the top hive body. I examined the frames yesterday and saw capped brood, capped honey and uncapped honey in the comb on the top super. I did not find any eggs or uncapped larva or the queen. The bees seemed to be putting honey into every open cell.

I did not remove the top box to look into the bottom one.

My question is this. would the queen move back down into the lower hive body to continue laying? What is the typical laying pattern? Why did I not find eggs or larva in the top Hive body? Is this the usual pattern?

Before closing the hive I did add a queen excluder and a small super to the top of the stack.

Comments (2)

treebeard
18 years ago
If you picture the inside of the two deeps as a box, and centered in the middle of that box is a ball with a diameter about half the inside deminsion of the box, half of the ball in the bottom deep, and half of the ball in the top deep, that's pretty much where the queen will reside. And that's where the 'brood' will reside.

If you saw capped brood in the top deep, then the queen has been there. Not seeing eggs or uncapped larva or the queen up there is not necessarily a bad thing. She may be busy at work in the bottom deep. And you won't know until you look. When you do, if you see eggs, you really don't need to find the queen, but it's always interesting to try.

A word of warning, though. If you remove the top deep to inspect the bottom deep, be very careful of where place the top deep andhow you handle it...just incase the queen is up there and you didn't see her. She can 'fall out' quite easily, and getting her back in is damned near impossible.
Barnabus
18 years ago
Hi:
The queen will rome all over both deep boxes laying eggs where ever the hive bees have cleaned sells. If your top box is drawn out as you said you need to add another box on the top, that will give them room, to put the honey they are now making and putting in the top deep. It would be good if you have or can get frames that have already been drawn out.

Hope this helps.
Barnabus