06/08/2026
Warning: long post about bees and the approaching bee year.
If you've watched any bee youtubes, you'll hear people talk about 'drawn' and 'undrawn' bee frames. Essentially, an undrawn frame is brand new. A bee can't store anything on it as the individual cell structures still need to be built. I embed a sheet of wax into the new frames so that the bees are given a starting template. The sheets have been pre-stamped with picture-perfect shaping to encourage the bees to build in a particular way.
In a drawn-out frame, bees have previously generated enough wax to build the complete structures and they're ready to have things (nectar, pollen, honey, eggs, baby bees) stored in them.
To generate wax, young bees secrete it from a gland and then shape it. In terms of energy requirements, the bees need 6-8 frames worth of honey-energy to 'draw out' a frame. Drawn frames are one of the most important resources for beekeepers. Once drawn, you can get a few years out of each frame before it starts to get a bit gross and you need to process and clean the wax.
Each year we have been growing our colony numbers so we haven't had a surplus of drawn frames. This is why our honey output isn't very high. We have the bees focusing their energy on frame-building and colony growth. Honey has largely been a bi-product instead of a focus. This also means that we still don't have decent data on what each of our hives can produce when we shift their focus to honey production. Here comes the exciting part!
I finally finished our 2026/2027 bee year plan last week (in my mind, the 'bee year' starts in spring). This included counts on our existing frames and equipment. We finally have a surplus of drawn frames! This means that this year, we can run 4 out of our starting 13 hives as production hives. Every time a box gets added, each of its frames will be drawn. Every time we extract honey, the extracted frames will be replaced with drawn frames. I've chosen 2 wooden hives and 2 polystyrene hives.
Now I'm getting to the part that excites me. We will finally get the data we need for decision making and further planning. We'll be able to get a rough sense of how much honey each production hive will produce (I say rough as each season will be different) and exactly when our regular honey flows will be. We'll also be able to compare the output differences between wooden hives and polystyrene hives. We'll use the Apilog app to track their colony health and honey production in a meaningful way.
The other 9 hives are still going to be very productive but their 'primary output' focus will be on drawing frames and acting as parent hives for our (hopeful) increase of 10-15 hives. Any honey from them will be a bi-product.
Now that the days are starting to get longer and we are getting closer to the consistent 15 degree days that will signal the new bee year, I'm feeling very excited. This year is going to be huge for us!
