When To Add a Second Brood Box

After my last inspection, eight out of ten frames were filled. That evening I went back to my beekeeping books to check when to add the second brood box. After reading up and surfing the web a bit, I found my answer. The rule of thumb is to add a new box when the lower box is 80% full. Great, I never thought the bees would expand this fast! I decided to wait the mandatory three days before opening the hive again.

Here you can see my brother and me working the hive. There are different methods to adding a brood box, but I chose pyramiding (let me know in the comments when and how you add new boxes to the hive). Imagine the broodnest as a pyramid in the center of the boxes, with the honey frames lining the outside. That is what I'm trying to do. It is a pretty basic process, just move the three center frames from the bottom to the three center slots in the top box. Push the remaining frames in the bottom to the center, then add empty frames to the outside.

This is my hive after I added the second box. I think that it looks really nice (except for the smudge of wax in the center, but hey, that gives it character). Be careful when you add a new box. If you add it too early, you run the risk of demoralizing the bees. Demoralizing is when there is so much empty room in the hive that the bees don't even think its possible to fill all the frames. Why attempt an impossible task? Demoralizing the bees will cause them to build slower, this will hold your beehive back. That is a concept I learned from "The Fat Bee Man" on youtube. He is very experienced and gives great tips.

Hive Inspection 1 & 2

I have done two hive inspections so far and I am excited to show you all the growth. The first three pictures are from the first inspection and the last four are from the second inspection. After we opened up the hive, we went straight for the new frames. Below you can see how much growth we had in one week.

Honestly, I was pretty disappointed with this. It was the only new frame out of five that has been drawn at all. In hindsight, I can understand it. Because we had a lot of rain and it was their first week, it is not surprising that there was such little growth.

This is one of the original frames from our Nuc. I really like the brood pattern here -- definitely a good sign. We saw the queen again but didn't snap a picture of her. Below is a close up of some brood. Notice the pollen, larva and capped brood. In the top middle of the picture you can see what looks like an early stage swarm cell. I wouldn't bee surprised if it is an abandoned queen they were making before they got transfered to the new hive. I will keep an eye on it.

Now for hive inspection two. I immediately saw some good signs after opening the hive. Notice the outside frames in the picture below. This week they are coated in bees, whereas, last week there were no bees on them. This tells me that the bees have drawn out these frames.

Tada! This is one of the outer frames that has been almost fully drawn out. Look back at the first picture in this post. You can really see how much they have expanded, and they have moved onto other frames too. So far they have completed 8 out of the 10 frames. Soon we will have to add a second brood box, another milestone! 

Bee Bonus: Look carefully in the upper part of the frame near the right side. See the queen? She has a red dot on her back.

In this photo of one of the orignal frames, you can see a good brood pattern. See how the capped brood is around the outside of the frame, rather than in the middle area like the photo from inspection 1? This tells me that the center area has hatched out. I really like the variety of pollen colors in the center. You can also see nectar glistening in the uncapped cells, as well as some capped honey in the upper left corner.

This is my brother cutting some burr comb, one of my favorite things during an inspection. We keep all the extra wax in a jar. Soon it will bee full, so we will be able to melt it down and refine it!