At 02:28  6/12/96 -0500, you wrote:
>---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>Sender:       Discussion of Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
>Poster:       Joel Govostes <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject:      Honey-clogged brood nests - solution?
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>The 20 single story hives which I made up as splits with queen cells are
>doing well.  Maybe TOO well.  A few of the queens have started laying.  BUT
>-- the black locust (wonderful) flow has been long and heavy.  So whilst
>waiting for their queens to emerge and get to work, guess what my little
>friends have done?  Yup; in many cases almost completely filled the single
>brood chambers with honey!  So much so that there are precious few cells
>for the queens to lay in.  It was quite a sight to lift lid after lid and
>be greeted with rows of bulging, pure white capped combs.
>
>Q:  Will the bees move this honey to make room for the brood??!
>I have added a honey super over an excluder on each hive with hopes that
>they will.  Much of the honey clogging the brood chamber is capped already.
>On one hive it was so bad I gave the queen (laying) a new empty brood
>chamber under the honey filled one.  Still, I was hoping to keep these to
>one story and move them easily once there were a few combs going well with
>brood.  Any suggestions appreciated -- figures there's such a great flow of
>light honey after such a lossy winter!    Cheers,   JWG
>
 
My suggestion, if you have the time, energy and equipment, is to go ahead
and extract your honey and put the empty (already built up) frames back on
the colonies.  There's still enough time in the season, with pulled
foundation, for them to get a good start on filling the empties up again and
this will give the queen plenty of room to lay.  With the honey flow as good
as it is, who knows, you may even be able to get another partial robbing
done before the season ends. And you know what that means?  More Honey!  :)
 
 
Cheers,
 
 
Mike Wallace
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McKinney, Texas   USA
"If you don't have something good to say,
don't say anything at all."