Spring Manipulation of Beehives

An important part of successfully keeping bees in any setting is the management or “manipulation” of the hive.

Hive Management

While some believe that leaving a hive to do “it’s own thing” may be beneficial in terms of minimal disturbance to the colony, there are disadvantages thereof.

Bees can and do contract diseases either through the beekeeper or external circumstances. Disease if not detected early can lead to infection of other nearby hives and/or death of the hive itself.

Manipulation of a hive is a process whereby the beekeeper actively inspects and rearranges frames within the brood box to ensure maximum comfort and space for the bees.

Looking after your Queen

In Spring, the queen will begin to lay many more eggs as food (nectar and pollen) is collected by the worker bees. This creates an overcrowding problem in the hive - which usually leads to swarming, which is undesirable albeit a normal phenomenon in the yearly lifecycle of the hive.

The queen will lay so many eggs that the workers find it hard to all fit into the hive, spurring the swarming urge in the colony.

Manipulation of the brood box will help alleviate the overcrowding within the hive, simply by “lifting” brood above the queen excluder thereby providing more room for the queen to lay. I tend to select young brood as opposed to sealed brood; sealed brood will hatch a lot sooner than unsealed brood thereby providing more space in which the queen can lay. I would normally lift 3-4 frames of brood at a time, carefully making sure the queen is not accidentally lifted into the honey super with the brood. It is always a good idea to find the queen first prior to lifting frames of brood.

If manipulating early in Spring, ensure the brood lifted AND the brood remaining in the brood box are all together otherwise you will risk “chilling” the brood and killing the bees. Once the weather becomes warmer this is not usually too much of an issue. The beekeeper can space out the frames between the brood frames left in the brood box. I practice replacing brood frames lifted only with drawn, straight, clean, new frames in which the queen can lay. Bees tend to draw frames more fully in the honey super compared to the brood box. It is acceptable to use foundation frames in the brood box, but don’t forget the bees have to be on a honey flow to manufacture the wax need and the queen will not be able to lay in them until drawn- as opposed to immediately with drawn combs.

When to manipulate your hives?

Hives can be manipulated on several occasions as the conditions dictate, sometimes up to 3 times in Spring. It is always a good idea to leave a frame containing honey & pollen as the outside frames as the bees will need these to feed the young.