# How can I convince bees to draw wax in summer?



## shaneTX (Jun 7, 2016)

I got my bees late this year and they have stopped drawing wax. I realize we are in the dearth and I've tried to compensate with feeding them 1:1 syrup hoping to stimulate them. They drain the syrup but instead drawing wax, it appears they honeybind themselves leaving the queen little room to lay eggs. 

Any advice?


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## Daniel Y (Sep 12, 2011)

put new frames between already drawn frames.


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

Feed 1 part sugar to 2 parts water. That's working for me.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

Brad Bee said:


> Feed 1 part sugar to 2 parts water. That's working for me.


Doesn't that spoil in like 30 minutes?


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

jwcarlson said:


> Doesn't that spoil in like 30 minutes?


Yes, but not when you put a cap of clorox in each 5 gallon bucket.


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## Rick_ Sprague (Feb 7, 2012)

You can also a a little vinegar to change the PH to to make it a little more acid.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

JW and Brad, please read before posting an answer. JW should of pointed this out already.
His hive is now sugar syrup bound limiting the queen's ability to lay.
Now they are more concern about storing for the winter than drawing new comb in the dearth. This is
typical for a hive in prep mode. Our weather is gradually changing, getting darker everyday as
time goes by. If not in prep mode now to cap some honey they cannot get through this winter.
Give them some drawn comb if you can and stop feeding until they either use up the syrup or cap them.
If they are in the storage mode then it is hard to get them in an expansion mode again. I'll leave mine alone
with this issue that eventually they will reduced the brood nest in a few months.


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

beepro said:


> JW and Brad, please read before posting an answer. .


Is that something you plan on starting too? You must not have a homemade feeding gadget or you would have surely mentioned it.

To the OP, if you want them to draw comb, feed them 1 part sugar to 2 parts water. Feeding anything in a dearth stimulates brood rearing. You need young bees to efficiently draw comb. End of story.


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## ChuckReburn (Dec 17, 2013)

shaneTX said:


> I got my bees late this year and they have stopped drawing wax. I realize we are in the dearth and I've tried to compensate with feeding them 1:1 syrup hoping to stimulate them. They drain the syrup but instead drawing wax, it appears they honeybind themselves leaving the queen little room to lay eggs.
> 
> Any advice?


Quit feeding. Think about it a minute, they are already "fed" they've just transferred it from the feed trough to their available cells. Are they going to "starve" in this condition = Answer: No.

Add drawn comb with empty cells if you have it. If you don't you need to wait for them to clear out the cells they do have. In Austin Texas, I see fall build up starting about now. There's a balancing act in summer dearth in feeding small colonies to get comb drawn, a trickle (1-2 quarts a week of 1:1 in a jar feeder with 3 or 4 thumb tack sized holes works for me) simulates a nectar flow and keeps the queen laying, young bees being continually produced, and the colony size growing. This gets comb built because you have 3 things going on: A colony that needs more space (drawn comb), young bees that of wax building age and, a steady source of carbohydrates to be converted to wax.

But it's a balancing act and requires monitoring, ideally you'll see young larvae developing in a pool of royal jelly. If you see them in dry cells, increase the rate of feed and if you see back filling, pull the feeder.

You likely won't get much more comb drawn this season but if you don't let them open up the brood nest you'll be sending them into winter without an opportunity to get a few good rounds of brood in and that doesn't bode well for them.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Chuck got the right idea about stop feeding them.
Somehow I try to get Brad to see the picture of the turning of the
seasons. We are no longer in a Spring expansion mode. Wake up Brad, we're in
the middle of the season with winter approaching in a few months. In beekeeping you
have to track the hive progress in order to understand and apply some of these
beekeeping concepts in practice. Feeding when in storage mode will have no bee benefits. They
will swarm too if you overfed and fill up their brood nest. Sometimes members here mention about the late
swarm because of the golden rods flow. Give them more room guys! Got it Brad?


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## Richard Cryberg (May 24, 2013)

How many drawn frames does the hive have? If it has 20 drawn frames it does not need any more so do nothing. If it has five drawn frames feed like mad regardless if they are honey bound as that is the only way to get them to draw wax. If they have five frames the queen needs all that and more just to lay, except you probably do not have close to enough bees to support much more brood than you have. If you stop feeding there is one thing that can be assured. They will not draw any foundation at all and probably will cut back on the amount of brood or even stop rearing brood entirely. In either case you have no hope of getting the hive thru the winter. I have never once seen a hive that would not draw foundation if fed all the 1:1 sugar water they will take even smack in the middle of a dearth. If you do not even have any pollen coming in you need to feed pollen sub also. If you happen to have such a hive that refuses to draw comb when being fed you have some genetics that are never going to survive, nor produce any honey for you so if you feed and they still die you have lost nothing. Ideally they should be taking down at least a quart of 1:1 or stronger every 24 hours. I really do not know what strength I feed but you could figure it out. I dump 25 pounds of sugar in a five gallon bucket and fill the bucket up to about the 4.5 gallon point with water. That is a bunch stronger than 1:1 and I have never seen a hive that would not draw foundation when being fed that strength.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

If my math is correct your 25 lbs. turn into 1.25 or 1 1/4 ratio. So very close to 1:1.
But if no more room is in the hive then no matter how many frames they have it is still nectar/sugar bound.
Until they can free up some cell space for the queen to lay in, your continuous feeding will only be wasting the sugar money.
No winter bees is a dead hive! That is the lost there, time, work and sugar money. But all the frames can be reuse to start another hive in the Spring time. In a case like this I would like to do a little bee experiment on them. Split up the hive in half with another mated queen. Stop feeding until they have free up some cells space for the new queen to lay in. Now you can compare which hive will grow the fastest. Or give some nectar bound frames to another hive and swap with the brood
frames. Now you have some clean cells for the queen to lay. Do this in a 5 frame nuc hive crowded with bees. You should see within a week that the newly installed wax foundation frame will be fully drawn out. Crowded with bees is the answer!


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

In order to answer your question, I need more information from you.
What type of hive are you using? 
What is the hive configuration?
What type of feeder are you using?


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## Kamon A. Reynolds (Apr 15, 2012)

Best thing you could do is remove any frames that are solid nectarand/ honey spin them out. Even if it has a little pollen in it it would be worth it to get the drawn comb. If you don't have enough protein coming in they won't rear enough brood regardless of feeding sugar syrup. You can however back fill the combs with beebread so watch out for that. 

If you were able to get your feed reserves down you could feed like Brad Bee instructs. Feed half a gallon at a time with a tiny pollen patty. This will get the colonies brooding up which will also burn up stores keep a close eye on backfilling.

Unless you have more young honey bees then you won't draw comb.


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

beepro said:


> Chuck got the right idea about stop feeding them.
> Somehow I try to get Brad to see the picture of the turning of the
> seasons. We are no longer in a Spring expansion mode. Wake up Brad, we're in
> the middle of the season with winter approaching in a few months. In beekeeping you
> ...


If he's been continually feeding the bees don't know they are in a dearth. I know things are different in Cali than they are in the south but I've never seen a calendar in a bee hive. They adjust population based on food source. If he has pollen in the hive and is feeding them, they should be making bees. He needs more room in the hive and extracting or washing out the syrup is the only way to open up cells quickly. I have not seen any backfilling while feeding 1 part sugar to 2 parts water. I stimulated my bees to make comb in the middle of a dearth by feeding just two gallons per hive per week. If I can do it then I don't know why he can't. Of course I typically only give advice on things that I have tried and that have worked for me, not mythical unicorn home made gadgets.


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## frustrateddrone (Jan 31, 2015)

1 of the things I did recently on a new bee hive that I am experimenting with. They honey bound the brood box and refused to draw comb above. The queen had 2 frames to lay on. So I removed 5 frames and gave them 5 frames to work on. Removed the box above. I doubt they will just ignore building comb on the frames.


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## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

it's a bit of work, but one surefire way to get them to draw comb late is to make a split...... a Teranov split to be exact, shake the queen and all house bees out and put them into a new box with foundation like a swarm and feed the crap out of them, they are now in build up mode and will try to produce as much comb to winter on as possible. when comb building stops, recombine with the parent colony.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

So Harley, this is how we handle an unproductive summer hive just bearding along.
And don't forget the patty subs too.


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## Stephenpbird (May 22, 2011)

shaneTX said:


> Any advice?


As a beekeeper, as opposed to a beehaver, we can encourage the bees to do what we would like. 

You have received some good advice. Like removing one frame of capped stores and replacing it with one frame of foundation in the middle of the brood nest while feeding. This feeding needs to be adjusted to suit the size of your hive. To much and they will store it, too little and they will stop drawing comb, to encourage drawing of comb the bees need to feel they are in a flow, so feeding a little and often works well for me.

Forcing the bees into build mode works well too, as pointed out making some sort of a split and feeding achieves this goal.

I have used both these methods and they work well, if you treat for mites then this can be incorporated well into the splitting method.


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## razoo (Jul 7, 2015)

I am curious as to this comment



Stephenpbird said:


> Too much and they will store it, .


I feed my bees, and am interested to know how much is too much?
Also, I had no idea that bees would store a sugar/water mix?
Do they store it as honey? I didn't know they did that.


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## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

razoo said:


> I am curious as to this comment
> 
> 
> 
> ...


if you have capped honey or " honey" as it sounds in your case.....you can stop feeding..... unless you want a lot of capped stores for winter then feed till they are the weight you need


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## Stephenpbird (May 22, 2011)

razoo said:


> I feed my bees, and am interested to know how much is too much?


The OPs goal is for the bees to draw wax comb, if the bees have empty comb they usually wont draw comb, so it needs to be filled with a balance of brood and stores, once that has been achieved, the bees need the feed to draw new comb. 
The Balance of brood and stores depends on the size of the hive and the time of the year.



razoo said:


> Also, I had no idea that bees would store a sugar/water mix?


yes they do, once they reduce the water content they will cap it just like they do with honey.



razoo said:


> Do they store it as honey? I didn't know they did that.


 No nectar is made into honey not sugar water.


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## razoo (Jul 7, 2015)

Stephenpbird said:


> yes they do, once they reduce the water content they will cap it just like they do with honey.
> No nectar is made into honey not sugar water.


So that is of concern. If I fed them and they stored it and capped it, how would I know when I come to extracting whether I am extracting capped sugar water or honey?


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## AR Beekeeper (Sep 25, 2008)

The fastest way to get foundation drawn into comb after the flow has stopped and the bees are not producing wax is to shake the colony on to frames with only foundation. Remove all but one frame of uncapped brood and replace the comb with only the number of frames of foundation that the bees can fully cover. Give the removed frames to other another colony or colonies and feed 1:1 syrup. A colony that covers 5 to 7 deep frames of foundation will usually start producing wax after they have taken about 1.5 to 2 gal. of syrup.

To keep syrup out of the surplus honey supers, remove and extract them before you start trying for more comb.


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## Stephenpbird (May 22, 2011)

razoo said:


> So that is of concern. If I fed them and they stored it and capped it, how would I know when I come to extracting whether I am extracting capped sugar water or honey?


 You would not know for sure, but in the yearly cycle you would not need to be feeding when there is a nectar flow and the honey supers were on.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Use a 5 frames nuc hive crowded with bees.
Then put in a foundation for them to draw. Even in the
dearth they will make new drawn frames for me. If you have 10
such nucs then getting 10 additional drawn frames are not that hard. No need
to shake out the bees as we're getting close to the end of the season.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

When the weather is warm enough, I put frames to be drawn in between two frames of open brood with a top feeder right over them. This causes an imbalance between open brood frames that the bees work quickly to remedy. 

Beekeepers are con's and the bees are our mark. We set up a situation that causes the bees to respond to meet our goals.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

Duplicate post


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

duplicate post


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

In the past 6 weeks I've got around 80 deep frames drawn out feeding 1 part sugar to 2 parts water. If I would keep the feeders from running empty I could likely have had 120 drawn by now.


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## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

razoo said:


> So that is of concern. If I fed them and they stored it and capped it, how would I know when I come to extracting whether I am extracting capped sugar water or honey?


you wouldn't unless you marked it with food coloring, otherwise trying to get honey without sugar syrup in it is like having a no peeing section in a swimming pool. Even if you pull the feed before you put supers on, they might just move some of that sugar syrup up .


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## Daniel Y (Sep 12, 2011)

.....like having a no peeing section in a swimming pool.

Okay that made me laugh, thanks


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