# Need advice strengthening a very weak hive



## Hokie Bee Daddy (Apr 1, 2011)

A friend asked me to help him with his hive today. He has had the hive for probably 5 years and hasn't been in it in three years. His hive was a deep box on the bottom and then a shallow super on top with 9 frames in each box. We saw the queen and she was laying in the shallow and her pattern looked fine with brood on 4 shallow frames. It was small but these are shallow frames. There were bees on 5-6 frames and they were putting nectar in the frames that didn't have brood. None of the nectar was capped. In the bottom deep 6 of the frames were drawn completely and had some pollen but they weren't "pollen bound". The other three were being drawn naturally but it looks like they stopped before completing the frames. There was no honey and I would say there were no more than 30 bees in the deep.

The objective is to build this hive up so they can put away enough honey or sugar water before winter. In order to give the queen more room to lay I reversed the boxes and put the deep on top figuring that she will move up into that box within the next month or so and start laying there. When she does that and the hive gets right sized again, I'll put the shallow back on top for honey storage. There aren't many bees in the hive though to tend to a lot of brood.

I considered feeding but our nectar flow here will last until mid-July, stop for a month and then start again around August 15. I had thought we would really feed the sugar water to them during the mid-July dearth. Is there anything else I should do to strengthen this weak hive?

Thanks for the advice.


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## honeybeekeeper (Mar 3, 2010)

I would check around your area and see if they run with 2 deep hive bodies! Thats what i use is 2 deep hive bodies and use medium supers for honey!


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## lakebilly (Aug 3, 2009)

Seems to me that one deep should be sufficient until you see a good population. Two deeps is an awful lot of room for thirty bees to guard. You may consider a nuc box or entrance reducer.


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## honeybeekeeper (Mar 3, 2010)

If you had another hive you could add a frame of brood and shake some bees in the hive! Its always good to have 2 hives....When i mentioned about running 2 deeps i was referring to the future, obviously you wouldnt need more space with just 30 bees...So just having one deep with 30 bees isnt gonna do you any good unless you add more bees or reduce the space inside the deep! You might want to just use 3 frames and use a follower board to close off the extra space for now! Once the queen gets laying and you start seeing more brood you can move the follower board and give 2 more frames. My concern is just having 30 bees it would be great if you had excess to a frame of brood that was covered with bees....That would help strengthen the hive!


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## Hokie Bee Daddy (Apr 1, 2011)

Thanks for the advice all. 

Honeybeekeeper - we use a deep and as little as a shallow super to winter in around here so the set up he has isn't unsual. Good idea on the follower board.

Lakebilly and Honeybeekeeper - I had the same thought last night after posting and will reduce the hive to the shallow super and feed big time. Now that I replay the inspection in my mind, there wasn't any nectar at all in the hive. I don't think they have enough foragers out to sustain the hive and pack away extra nectar. Also, the extra box of brood comb is susceptible to wax moths this time of year so it needs to go in storage for a while.

I'm moving the hive over to my house tomorrow night and will try to bring them back. Thanks again.


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## honeybeekeeper (Mar 3, 2010)

Sounds like a good plan. If you have access to a frame of brood and bees, that would be a plus! In the future you might want to run atleast 2 hives just in case something happens to the one you can fall back on the other to help it out! Good Luck!


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## Hokie Bee Daddy (Apr 1, 2011)

I'm doing this for a friend of mine. I have hives myself but since all of his bees are in a shallow box and my brood are in deeps, my frames won't fit. I'll have to wait a month or so for that until I get his working in a deep box. I'll keep you posted.


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