What Do You Think? On Pollen Stores and Brood Nest Placement

Discussion and questions.
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KeeperBea
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Joined: Wed Jul 25, 2012 11:03 am

What Do You Think? On Pollen Stores and Brood Nest Placement

Post by KeeperBea » Fri Jul 27, 2012 5:13 pm

I have two Langstroth hives. Each has two deep hive bodies.

Today, I looked at one of my hives and saw this:
a) Almost all of the brood is in the upper hive body. I saw 4 or 5 frames pretty well packed with larva and eggs. I also have 3 or 4 honey frames.

b)The lower hive body has a couple honey frames on the outside, a very little bit of brood (capped and uncapped larva), one frame with not much of anything and, 6 frames REALLY packed with pollen.

Here are my questions:
1. Should I move the brood nest down to the lower hive body?
2. Should I move the pollen frames up? Or, should I remove some of the pollen frames and replace with new unbuilt frames (perhaps along with moving the brood nest down)? Can you have too much pollen? If I let it be, will the girls rearrange to allow the Queen to lay and to allow them to store honey? Or, should I make some changes?

Bea

Book Club Host
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Joined: Fri Jun 29, 2012 9:29 am

Re: What Do You Think? On Pollen Stores and Brood Nest Place

Post by Book Club Host » Sat Jul 28, 2012 11:17 am

Thanks for the interesting question, Bea.

As long as the queen has laying space (and it sounds like she does) I would leave as-is this time of year. The bees know where they've stored their stuff and will move it around if necessary.

It's normal for the brood nest to rise and fall in the brood chamber throughout the season. I like to think of it as a puff of smoke rising and falling in a chimney.

If you haven't supered yet, now may be a good time.

Interested to hear other thoughts ...

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