Emptying brood frames of stores

[fatshark]

What do you do with brood frames packed with uncapped nectar? If they're capped I store them away for winter and/or making up nucs. However, this year I've got a couple of hives that are filling out the brood box with stores ... just like they do when the colony goes queenless. For the moment I've put them over the supers on a strong colony, separated by a crown board with a small hole in the centre. I've done this before with variable success and wondered if others had a better plan.

[The Drone Ranger]

What do you do with brood frames packed with uncapped nectar? If they're capped I store them away for winter and/or making up nucs. However, this year I've got a couple of hives that are filling out the brood box with stores ... just like they do when the colony goes queenless. For the moment I've put them over the supers on a strong colony, separated by a crown board with a small hole in the centre. I've done this before with variable success and wondered if others had a better plan.
Hi Fatshark mostly any food combs you put under the brooodbox they will take the contents and move them into the broodnest
not 100% reliable but worth a go :)

[fatshark]

Hi DR ... not ever tried under. I'll give it a try if they don't do anything with the frames up top. I want to get as much as possible packed into the supers and capped off. The flow here is excellent, and with a little bit of rain forecast next week it should get better. Only about a third of frames are capped ... it's coming in so fast they can't evaporate off the extra water quickly enough. As it is you can easily hear the hum from hives on a calm evening ... magic.

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi Fatshark
If I have a box of solid rape honey which I would like them to clear
If it goes above a broodbox they just ignore it even when you scrape it a bit
If You put it below and scrape it a bit they usually uncap it and move it over the broodnest
I think you can use this when faced with solid supers because you can get the honey moved to another super where you can extract it
Caveat emptor because it doesn't work sometimes :)

[fatshark]

Hi Fatshark
If I have a box of solid rape honey which I would like them to clear
If it goes above a broodbox they just ignore it even when you scrape it a bit
If You put it below and scrape it a bit they usually uncap it and move it over the broodnest
I think you can use this when faced with solid supers because you can get the honey moved to another super where you can extract it
Caveat emptor because it doesn't work sometimes :)

I presume you put a QE over it? The last thing I need is double brood ...

I'll give it a go. Nothing ventured, nothing gained ;-)

[Neils]

Extract it. Move honey up and replace with comb. If you've got an arc of honey at the top of the frames the queen probably won't move up above it unless she needs to so you can try removing the QE.