# Rearrange frames on new hive?



## bobsim (Jan 27, 2015)

Hi Steve,

This is my first year keeping bees, two hives and nursing one 'silver dollar' swarm along. My strongest hive is two months old and doesn't look near as good as your five week colony. If I were in your shoes I'd leave em alone, seems to me they're on a roll. 

FWIW, I like to drive against the arrows in parking lots to mess with people.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>except my bees seem to be building the hive backwards. 

Apparently you forgot to read the book to the bees... they are often illiterate and therefore unaware of what they are supposed to be doing...

http://www.bushfarms.com/beeslazy.htm#stopfightingbees


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## Steve61 (Jan 5, 2015)

Thanks Michael. I like the concept of lazy beekeeping in your link. I had read too many comments about how you do not want your brood nest in the center of the hive come winter as they only move in one direction for their food stores. I guess I'll just wait till fall and reevaluate everything then.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

If your entrance is in the middle they will keep moving the brood nest to the middle. If your entrance is on the end they will tend to have the brood nest at the end. Yes, worry about it in the fall. It may not stay where it is now anyway.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

*All of this assumes that you have an entrance on one end and not in the middle*

I STRONGLY encourage you to pinch those ends that are not centered on the bar back to the center before they end up a big mess. I know right now it looks like it won't be a problem, but if you let it get out of hand you're going to have a jigsaw puzzle of combs that you can't put next to each other in any order than how the bees drew them which is frustrating and not a good way to run the hive.

One of mine did that when first installed last year (it was cold (nights in 30*F range) and they clustered near the feeder.

Before too long I moved it towards the entrance. I've manipulated mine this year as follows:

First inspection pulled bars out in chunks and cleaned the bottom out scraping it all towards the back and then out. No rearranging of the brood nest.

A few weeks later I shifted the broodnest *as a whole* towards the entrance as they were a bit farther back in the hive.

Couple weeks later moved the broodnest *as a whole* almost all the way to the front but I always leave one comb at entrance without brood in it for "insulation" it is almost always full of pollen. Then placed an empty worker sized comb (or combs) between brood and front comb then another worker sized comb (or combs) between the last bar with brood and the first bar of honey. So from entrance it is: pollen comb, drawn empty worker-sized comb, *the entire broodnest*, drawn empty worker-sized comb, then honey. It really comes down to how many empty combs you have. I think I averaged about two empties on each side between our three TBHs. Some might have had more.

They moved into that nicely over the past two weeks and the broodnest has expanded from a few bars to probably at least 8 or more in all of the hives. Then this past Saturday I went in and moved the whole broodnest back and added an empty, undrawn bar to each end of it. So basically the same manipulation above, but instead of drawn comb I used a fresh, undrawn bar. 

None of these manipulations "disrupt" the brood nest. I'm not talking about adding empty bars in the middle of their brood or anything like that. The broodnest remains intact, just allowing it to expand into drawn comb early and then allowing them to draw more combs as swarm season nears to help deplete their wax builders. I am going to be doing the same thing again tonight if they have drawn out the empties I gave them (I suspect that they have).

I say all that to tell you what I'd do if I were you, and that would be to place a comb without brood in it as the first comb from the entrance. Then shift the entire broodnest up behind that with empty bars behind it. So don't change the order of those bars at all for the time being. Later you'll probably want to shift that drone comb to the last position in the broodnest so that if they still want to raise them they can, but it will be in an easy place for them to backfill it with honey. I wouldn't want a drone comb in the middle of my broodnest, but that's just me. I'm sure there are some combs with drone brood in the middle of some of mine, but I don't really want to "encourage" the queen to lay there once they have a set of drone emerged.

Good luck and let us know what you do!

























Keep them on center!


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## Steve61 (Jan 5, 2015)

jwcarlson said:


> I STRONGLY encourage you to pinch those ends that are not centered on the bar back to the center before they end up a big mess. I know right now it looks like it won't be a problem, but if you let it get out of hand you're going to have a jigsaw puzzle of combs that you can't put next to each other in any order than how the bees drew them which is frustrating and not a good way to run the hive.


JW, please excuse my ignorance, but I have no idea what you mean by this.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

Steve61 said:


> JW, please excuse my ignorance, but I have no idea what you mean by this.


I can see that the ends of your combs are curving off the center guide. It isn't a huge deal right now, but they will keep curving and end up bridging bars. Push the ends of the comb and smash them back straight. Do all of them and do it everytime you inspect. Eventually they will be nice and straight and you won't have to worry. Be gentle so you don't rip the comb off.


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## Steve61 (Jan 5, 2015)

JW:

I just went into my hive, found the curved comb, and was able to fix it. Thanks for the help.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

Steve61 said:


> JW:
> 
> I just went into my hive, found the curved comb, and was able to fix it. Thanks for the help.


Well done, now make sure to do it everytime you inspect!


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