Brood and honey barrier

[Bob Wilson]

I went into my long hives today to add more frames. In one of them, the brood nest was at the end, close by the entrance where it should be. However, I found a new drawn frame of comb, very, very light weight, with pretty white larva in the cells. Next was a solid, heavy frame of uncapped honey/nectar. Then a frame of of older brood, half empty, then the main brood nest. I switched the new brood frame to be next to the brood area, and the honey frame behind that. Is it normal to have a heavy honey frame in the middle of brood?

[cao]

Was it drone brood?  This time of year I find that they will put it just about anywhere they can find room.

[Bob Wilson]

Good question, Cao. I confess that I didn't even notice. As a newbie, I am still too focused on the big picture and fail to think out all the things I should be noticing.

[van from Arkansas]

Mr. Wilson, queens usually do not cross honey lines as we call them to lay brood.  However I have seen queens do exactly as you described.  This week no less I saw the same thing: brood frames, honey frame, then brood frame next to hive body wall??  Kinda unusual,  however, there were 10 frames of bees in a ten frame hive and the queen had little room to lay so yes, in this case the queen laid in an outer frame and crossed a honey line.

I provided another 10 frame deep and moved 2 brood frames into the new deep.  I was behind due to cold weather and could not open hives until last Wednesday which was 92F.  From a high of 43F to 92F in 48 hrs??  Oh well, no complaints, I was able to inspect hives for the first time in 3 weeks last Wednesday when I found brood, frame 10 of all places next to hive body.

[Acebird]

I have never had a long hive but it seems to reason that this is going to happen.  In order for the hive to expand horizontal at the same time they are storing excess honey they have to lay brood past frames that are already filled with nectar or honey.  Bees naturally work top to bottom because they use gravity.  Langstroth was no fool when he designed his hive.  Management for long hives has to be different.

[guitarstitch]

I've found the honey barrier to be a rough suggestion and not a hard rule that bees follow...just like many other things I've read about beekeeping.

I've got packages right now ignoring the barrier because I installed drawn out frames with foundationless frames.  The bees are pulling wax on the foundationless frames and the queen is skipping right over the drawn frames to lay eggs in the new wax.  As a result, the bees are storing nectar and pollen in the drawn frames.

[Acebird]

It would be unusual if the drawn frames are above empty frames in a Langstroth hive.  They usually work from the top down no matter what is there.

[guitarstitch]

It would be unusual if the drawn frames are above empty frames in a Langstroth hive.  They usually work from the top down no matter what is there.

In my case, these are all single boxes,so the skipping is horizontal, if you will.

[Kwalt]

I don't think you did wrong by moving the honey frame Bob. 

I have an available entrance in either end of my long langstroth hives.  This spring I opened the unused entrance at the opposite end and moved all of the frames to the opposite end of the hive keeping the same order they were in.  This put the unused honey near the newly opened entrance and the brood nest closer to the opposite end.  As they use the leftover honey from last year the brood nest will be where they want it and there won't be a barrier of cold honey to keep them from growing into the rest of the hive. 

In a horizontal space I'm not sure how far ahead the bees plan ahead for expansion.

Kevin