After I added a frame of sugar on top of the single brood box, October 25, 2012, I figured that would do it for the winter. But at the bee meeting in January, we were advised to keep feeding into the spring. It was important because the bees would be flying more and using up the last of the honey stores…if the weather was bad, they wouldn’t be able to fly and could starve and all our efforts would be wasted. Just to make sure I ask the natural beekeeping forum. I was advised to super another box.
We opened the hive on a sunny February day, adding more sugar on top of the brood box, then added an empty box on top. Inside the empty box hung a bit of comb on two top bars that measured about 2 inches (5 cm) down. I figured the bees would come through the slits, eat the sugar which would give them energy to build more comb.
Feb. 15, More sugar added. Slits cut through newsprint to allow bees access to sugar from bottom box. The chunks of sugar on the right of center was all that was left of the batch we placed in October.
February 17, 2013 Bees feeding on new sugar above brood box
The bees came up through the slits no problem, ate at the sugar, but stopped there. They would overnight on the sugar…soon it was covered in bees. They didn’t have any desire to build on the comb slightly above their heads. Meanwhile the bees were crowding out the single brood box.
March 3…This box is getting very crowded…
What to do??? Okay, here’s a plan…if they like the sugar so much, let’s place the sugar frame above the empty box. They’ll sniff out the sugar, climb up the comb to the sugar, and build out their comb.
March 9…Adding more sugar to the frame and placing it above top boxes
We waited a few days before we realized the bees were NOT going up to the sugar and certainly NOT building up more comb. Meanwhile the bees were getting even more crowded in the brood box.
I go back to the beekeeping forum and notice that Bernhard has added some info about using ‘ladders,’ along with some very excellent photos taken with his expensive macro lens.
Should I try to buy foundation for the Warre…I don’t want to use plastic in my ‘natural’ hive, and I don’t want to use wax that might carry disease, but I do have a bit of comb left over from a failed hive last year which had swarmed late, not queened successfully and was finished off by the wasps. I piece it together.
Comb ‘ladders’ attached to bars. This pathetic looking comb has been in the freezer for 4 to 5 months. I don’t have much left so I hope this will encourage them to climb upstairs.
March 24…Adding the first ladder
And the second ladder…”Honey, how about trimming the grass in front of the hive?”
A short video showing the steps involved…
Adventures in Natural Beekeeping 
I like your comb ladders, good idea. Re the sniffing out sugar thing, I haven’t known bees do this before. They definitely can’t sniff out sugar syrup. The smell of flowers and sugar is quite different – I don’t think sugar has enough of a scent for them to be drawn to it. You’d be better off leaving a trail of sugar or sugar syrup which they can follow.
I’ll explain my possibly flawed thinking about the ‘sniffing out the sugar thing.’ The bees got to the sugar right away (within minutes) when I placed it over their brood chamber box, and I even had a sheet of newsprint under the paddy. Also a recent conversation with the owner of a Mexican restaurant seeing my new log hive under construction talked about his childhood bee experience in Mexico. He told me when I get the log ready for a swarm to move in, to spray the inside with sugar water. That’ll attract the bees. Of course I’m going to use LGO as well.
Another interesting story he told was about ‘tanging.’ I had never heard about this, but he says it works 90% of the time. As a kid, it was his job to bring back the swarm…when he saw one he’d get a big noisy pot or pan and bang on it with a large spoon making a loud racket. He said that would stop the swarm from getting too far away and it would form lower. Now that would make for an interesting video. 🙂
Excellent post! I forwarded it to my husband who is the beekeeper in the family. This has definitely been a long, drawn-out winter and I’ve seen the bees flying several days this month when the temps got over about 48 degrees.
We haven’t had much of a winter here. With the exception of a few weeks here and there of windy rain, the bees have been flying regularly. Since this is my first successful (knock on wood) winter of having bees, I thought I wouldn’t see them til April or so, but they’ve been bringing in gobs of pollen. Yesterday evening while I was cropping the grass in front of my log hive, on my hands and knees, hoping they wouldn’t decide I was a threat, I could actually smell the inside of the hive…smelled like honey…and hear the very audible hum of bee activity. So what is honey doing in the hive at this time of year, when the bees have been flying so much, probably using up their honey stores? So much to learn.
Glad your ladders worked, Pat. I’m wondering if I should leave my Warre alone, top box built out but bottom box still void of comb, and just cross my fingers. Or should I reverse the boxes and bait the top with ladders like you did. I have 2-3 weeks to think on it. (I hope.) If they look like they might swarm, I’ll be reversing boxes, and the first thing I’ll need to do is get the cheesewire out. My bees attached their combs to topbars below as well. Naughty bees.
I wouldn’t want to hazard a guess, DB. My bees never did build down from the brood box, so I removed it. Now they are building up…weird, but someone mentioned the bees don’t like an empty space above them. Do you have a hive lift? I saw an easy one to build using a cheap Harbor freight trailer lift. http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?273388-Warre-hive-lift-design-light-compact-cheap-and-easy-to-build I’m going to build it so I can lift up the box just a bit and use the ‘cheese wire’ to see-saw back and forth to separate the comb between boxes.