Laurence Edwards checks his Hyde Hives lay-on hive ten days after installing frames at a pronounced angle. The bees accepted the wonky frames without issue: the queen is laying in the central DN4 frames, workers are drawing comb and storing nectar, and both drone and worker brood are developing normally.
We're back today at the Hyde Hives lay-on hive. I wanted to give you an update to show you how well the bees are drawing out around those frames that went in at a very jaunty angle. So I had a lot of comments back after this video saying, why don't you do it a different way? It's not going to work because of the angle of the frames and the angle of the comb. And you know me, if I've done something or I've told you something and it's wrong, I will show you that it's gone wrong. Luckily, in this case, it's not gone wrong. It's worked really, really well. So the bees are busy drawing out all around those frames, and the queen is busy laying eggs in the center in the original DN4 frames that are at that weird angle. The angle of the comb has not worried that queen at all. No problem whatsoever. They're storing nectar in it, they're storing honey in it, they're rearing brood in it. Doesn't look like they've reworked it, but they might have tweaked it a little bit. It's only been about 10 days, so I doubt they've reworked it that quick. I just wanted to do this video though to give you a snapshot, kind of like halfway in between them completely filling up those frames, just so you can see how they're drawing it out, the kind of comb they're putting in there, whether it's worker brood, drone brood, stores, nectar, anything. Let's get in, take a look, see how the bees are coming on, and see how they're working those frames. So this was the first frame that I pulled out, and as you can see, we've got lots of wax being drawn at the top there. It's mostly drone cells that they're putting in. But it's kind of different. I'm leaving the bees to just do what they want in this hive. If they want to put lots of drone cells in, I'm letting them do that. Over here we've got more worker cells though, and all around here all they're doing is they're just propolising things into place and putting stores around the edge. That's the first frame that I've got out. Let's go and have a look at some more. So this is what the roof looks like once you open it up, and you can see you've effectively got top bars. Can be a little fiddly to get used to. But I find just getting the hive tool in there, prising out that first one, checking for the queen, making sure she's not on it, and then putting that off elsewhere gives you plenty of room to work. Little sneak peek down into the frames for you there. Let's pull out a couple of the frames though and show you just how well the bees are getting on. So the bees are wasting absolutely no time filling this frame with stores, and you can see we've got a little bit of a strange configuration. I wouldn't want to start mixing these frames around because I think you'll have a bit that's thick and a bit that's thin, and if you don't put them back in in exactly the same order, you will end up squishing the bees. And it's not going to work 100% the first time. You might need to rearrange a little bit of this wax up here. For example, this top corner is protruding out a little bit. I can cut that down with my hive tool, and then over on this corner, it's protruding out a little bit, and I can push that back into position. It's going to take maybe 3 or 4 iterations of brood for me to get all of this wax exactly where I want it. I've said it before, much easier way here is just going to be wiring up those frames, sticking some foundation in, chucking in a swarm, and the bees will sort out everything for you. This method here is specifically if you really do want to transfer in a national nuc into these frames, and I think it's pretty cool. Like, I have to say, I'm really excited by this. I love the way they're just integrating those frames in there. And I'm going to leave the frames in there. I'm not going to try and take it out or cut it out. That gives me a lot of really good support all over the frame. But as you can see, all the way around the edge, they're putting in lots of stores, lots of drone brood going in. And again, that's a factor of when I'm doing that at this time of the year. Really should be doing this kind of later on in the year once they're kicking out the drones, and they'd fill all of that with worker brood as opposed to drone brood. But I'm not too fussy in this colony. They can do what they want. But what I'm finding really interesting is in the middle here, they're not fussed about the angle of that comb. The queen is still laying it up, turning it into brood, worker brood and drone brood. She isn't fussed, she's just getting on with her business. That orientation change of the frame has not put that queen off at all. So here's another frame, and again you can see the bees are doing a really, really good job of cementing that in place with propolis, with wax. It's very, very secure. You look, I can flip this all around, all directions. That is about as solid as you're going to get, and obviously as they build more wax on it, it's going to be more and more solid. Pretty much all the frames are looking like this now, mixture of drone brood, drone comb, worker brood, worker comb. They're filling in most of the gaps starting at the top. Give them a couple of more weeks and these frames are going to be completely full. So there you go, I just wanted to give you an update, show you how those bees were filling out those frames. If you missed the first part of this video, check it out here where I show you how to put a national nuc into a lay-on-style hive from Hyde Hives.
