The bees of Corner Ketch - experiment results

[BrentX]

New beekeeper here. 

Installed a 4 frame package July 22.  Fed sugar buzz for two weeks.  Inspection showed capped brood, larva, eggs on the original frames but next to none activity on the other 7 frames.  The bees like to build comb on the side of the internal frame feeder.  About 20% of the cells in the brood area looked like stored and capped sugar buzz.

Experiment 1:  So I placed two undrawn frames and foundation in the center of the brood area, one up, one down.  Five days later these frames are completely drawn and partially filled with larva.  This is without feeding the hive for the 5 days.

Experiment 2:  Melted wax from a burr comb and drippled it across a peice of foundation.  5 days later the frame is well drawn from the top down, but not where the wax was dribbled.  Bee do not appear to be impressed by melted wax on the foundation.

Experiment 3:  Rubbed unmelted raw wax from the hive lightly on three other foundations in frames.  After 5 days these are well drawn out.  Inconclusive,  I dont know if this helped or the bees just didn't care.  It may have just been time to draw the foundation.

I am very impressed with the quantity of foundation drawn in 5 days.
Any wisdom to share

[BrentX]

So with almost all the frames drawn, I added a home made super with 7 frames and the internal feeder.

Experiment 4:  Removed the two impressive combs hanging on the internal feeder and wired them into an empty frame.  Will see if the bees accepts this zoning commission intersession and build out this frame.

Experiment 5:  Rubbed wax on to bottom of the top bar of a few frames, to see if this encouraged the bees to build out these foundationless frames.  These share the hive with a few frames with foundation.  We will see which the bees prefer.

Filled the internal feeder and said good night to the bees.

When the hive was being fed there was normally lots of coming and going from the hive.  In the 5 days the hive was not fed, this coming and going activity was significantly less.  This suprised me.  Any explanation, or is activity at the hive driven by something other than feeding?

[AllenF]

Bees will always build comb better on waxed surfaces.   How many frames to you have built out in your hive now?

[brer]

I like it.  Objective experimentation. So many things in beekeeping have not changed in a very long time, it takes ideas to foment change.

Odds are 99 percent that it will be worthless, but if its that one percent idea, it's priceless.

and as far as that 99 percent, he will still have honey, bees and knowledge of things that don't work.

[BrentX]

In the bottom two medium boxes:

There are four drawn deeps - these are from the original package.
There were 7 medium frames - 5 of which are fully drawn. Plus a medium internal feeder.  

I moved the internal feeder to the top super and placed a frame with foundation in the slot.

In new top medium box:
4 medium frames no foundation;  1 of which has the peices of drawn comb built on the feeder wired onto.
3 medium frames with new foundation
1 medium frame internal feeder, which the bees seem to prefer for building comb on.