Hey all! I installed my package into my hiive a week ago. I finally checked on them and the queen did get out of her cage, mated, and confirmed there are eggs in the cell. The problem is that they’ve only used the honey home for the brood. I didn’t keep the excluder on there because I added pollen patties and a little 1:1 syrup up there. I can’t really remove the brood and slap it to the inside of the wall down below. What would you do? What are my options?
Also what the heck are these? They weren’t in the manual at all except the red one. The steps included adding the red complete excluder on there, adding food, and then taking it off to open the buffet. I hope the other two are queen excluders or some kind of bee escape.
Hi @Rugie,
The Yellow insert is a bee escape, used before harvesting the honey. The silver one is the queen excluder, red one obviously to seal of the honey room.
I think the combs look beautiful they built 
The only “problem” you have is, becuase the silver queen excluder was not inserted your queen will be most likely up in the honey room right now. From my perspective not such a big problem. I would just leave it for now. It is eraly in the year, the bees will quickly start to build out the breed room and the queen will come down to lay eggs there. Normally honey will be stored on top. So when the colony grows the queen will be most likely in the breed room anyway I assume.
But right now you can now insert the silver metal part, because you are in danger to trap the queen, as well with the yellow excluder.
So as said, I would just let them do their thing for now.
Maybe someone has a different idea?
Regards,
Peter
Thanks for the reply!! I checked on them today - installed them 2.5 weeks ago. The “honey room” is extremely heavy this time…but no brood down below still. Normal? How long before the queen makes her way down? Thanks!
Dear Rugie,
I would not place the silver piece on the brood chamber, because then the queen bee does not have the opportunity to descend over time, while the honey bees begin to build wax combs in the brood chamber.
I think BienenPeter wanted to use the word “can not” instead of the word “can” in this sentence. Of course it is normal for honey bees to have no brood in the brood chamber because they have not built wax combs in the brood chamber. The question of when the queen bee goes from the honey room to the brood room cannot be answered exactly, as it depends on whether the bees find enough nectar in the vicinity of the HIIVE to build the combs in the brood room. I would assume that it may take a month to build the necessary combs in the brood chamber for the queen bee to move from the honey chamber to the brood chamber. I would suggest that you buy feed dough and place it in a cup located at the bottom of the HIIVE to encourage the building of combs in the brood chamber. When the brood chamber is about half full of beeswax combs, you can place the silver thing on top of the brood chamber and wait 21 days. Waiting 21 days is important because it takes 21 days for the bee larva to develop into a fully developed honey bee. If 21 days have passed and there are still many brood chambers with fresh bee larvae in the honey chamber, this means that the queen bee is still in the honey chamber. Then you have to take the silver thing out again (because the queen bee then has the choice to go down to the brood chamber) and wait a few days to put it back on the brood chamber. Then you will need to repeat the procedure again to ensure that the queen bee is down in the brood chamber. One last tip for you is that you should put some bark mulch on the brood chamber if you have not done so, because it stabilizes the climate in the HIIVE and the bees also propolize the bark mulch. This helps to maintain hygiene in the hive). In addition, the honey room should not be opened too often as this can stress the bees and disturb the microclimate in the hive. The bees have to work very hard to restore the microclimate in the hive. And it can also delay the process of starting to build combs in the brood chamber. I hope the information helps you and if you have any questions, please feel free to ask.
Kind regards
Sinan
Hi all, yes - it was a typo. I wanted to say “But right now you can not insert the silver metal part…”