The second brood box often contains more honey than brood, but will fluctuate based on your colony’s needs. Although you may be eager to see your Flow Super in action, adding a second brood box will make for a stronger and more stable colony. When you give them more space than necessary they have to work much harder to maintain these conditions and the energy they expend doing so may result in less honey stores - not to mention stressed out bees!Īfter your bees have filled their first box with brood, you have the choice of adding another brood box or adding your Flow Super. Bees like to stay a warm and cozy 95 degrees Fahrenheit (35 degrees Celsius) inside their cluster. Since bees will need time to establish their brood nest and they cannot begin to store harvestable honey until they do this, you should install your new bees in just a single box.įor Flow Hive beekeepers, this means you should leave your Flow Super in the garage until your bees have filled their brood box. Any honey you find in your brood nest should be left alone for this reason. The honey is stored this way because the bees are using it to insulate their brood nest. It is common for there to be a strip of capped honey at the top of each frame in the brood nest and sometimes a full frame of honey on either end. Only after they have established their brood nest will they begin to store honey in large amounts. The bees must build up their infrastructure and workforce quickly if they wish to capitalise on this fleeting resource. In most places, flowers are only available during a short window of time. The brood nest is the very first thing your bees create. Even before the worker bees finish building their first piece of comb, the queen will begin to lay eggs in it. Without constant regeneration, the hive will falter and fail as its population ages. The brood is critical for the survival and health of your colony. The brood nestīees build their brood nest in the bottom box of a Flow Hive or other Langstroth set-up. In their first year, bees will spend a significant amount of their honey on drawing out combs and these combs will make up their brood nest. There’s a lot of variation depending on where the hive is situated, but for many, tapping pounds and pounds of honey right away is not a realistic expectation. The bees build hexagonal beeswax structures called combs and they are used to house both honey and developing bees (brood).īuilding new combs requires tremendous energy and is fuelled by pollen and honey consumption. Composition of a beehiveĪ beehive is made up of more than honey. In beekeeping, like with any animal husbandry, there’s a lot of learning to do but here's some of the basics to help you get started. Of course, with the advent of the Flow Hive, this particular function is now possible! However, it’s important to understand how much work goes into the production of honey prior to it being in sufficient amounts and ready to harvest.īefore the bees can make honey, they must build comb, raise young and visit a whole lot of flowers! As beekeepers, it’s our job to foster and monitor their progress. Outsiders envisage a shining palace of honey from which honey flows effortlessly. This is because of the misconception that a beehive is made entirely of honeycomb. Once word gets out that you are keeping bees, everyone you know will begin to pester you about honey. Flow Hive beekeeper Hilary Kearney looks at what newbees should do when their Flow Hive arrives. There’s much more to beekeeping than just harvesting honey.
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