We are prone on beeing beekeepers not bee killers so they are first before honey. Our nuc is doing fantastic, installed early April and just added a medium on the deep. We have a dearth in July and August, I am told, and a lot of people test and treat for mites then. My spouse wants to add another medium if/when this one builds out and not add the flow frames this year. I am thinking a medium w enough stores and feeding over winter in Virginia may allow us to add the frames for some September honey, or would you all advise against that. Not sure if that late in the year warrants their efforts.
I think either way could work, it really depends on how the weather and nectar flow continues from here. If the medium you just put on gets fully built and populated by early June, it might be feasible to add the Flow super and still capture a decent period of what remains of the nectar flow. If the weather has already turned very hot and dry by then, maybe not, and you would need to gauge whether adding another medium is even a good idea.
The cool thing about your current setup is that you can use the trick I learned from @Dawn_SD and put the Fsuper on between the deep and medium, making sure the queen is not in the medium and with the queen excluder on the deep of course, which will help draw the bees into the Fsuper AND help create airflow in humid weather. This is exactly what I aim to do every season in hot humid late spring in PA.
If things pan out well and you do put the Fsuper on this season and still have to remove it without much of a harvest, the bees would at least have a chance to wax up the Fframes and you’ll be ahead of the game next season.
About adding a medium in fall, I’ve rarely seen it work unless it already has built comb. The bees just aren’t as oriented to increasing and are already preparing for winter, so the best you could hope for is a little bump in existing comb. Also to keep in mind, fall honey is more prone to crystallization and can be slower to come out of the Fframes. It’s also best to leave this thicker honey in the hive because its lower water content is perfect for winter survival.
That’s an interesting idea w the FFlow frames in the middle! So many different ways to do things. We have similar climates, so I appreciate your help.
As an addition to @Eva’s excellent post, I would suggest that you put the medium above the queen excluder until it is full. That way, you won’t have brood, or the queen in it. When you get to September, take the excluder off (and the Flow super if it is on the hive), so that they can access it over winter without leaving the queen below the cluster.
Also, about putting a medium on top of the Flow super. I do this when the Flow super is full, but the bees are not capping it. Sometimes they don’t cap it because of the humidity, and the extra space at the top of the hive gives a bit more room to “dilute” out the moisture when they are fanning the honey to dry it. I usually use a medium with empty frames of drawn comb, not a medium full of honey or brood, but you could use one with foundation too. If you put a honey laden super on top of the Flow frames, the bees may focus on moving the honey around, which is fine, but really you want them to focus on drying what you have.
This confuses me, as we put the medium on as they were full up and building queen cells so wouldn’t the queen excluder entice her to swarm if there is no more space for brood?
The reasons for swarming are complicated and not fully understood, even by professional bee researchers. Backfilling brood space with honey by the bees is one reason, but not the only one. If you saw queen cells, the best thing is to do a split. My favorite split is the modified Snelgrove 2.
If the extra medium is to get them through the winter, but you not sure if they would fill it, I would put it above the queen excluder. If you want a more populous hive, put it below. However, if they are already making loaded queen cells (not just “play cups”), you really need to split.
Here are a couple of articles on queen cells and splitting. The Modified Snelgrove 2 is described on p24 of the second article, but I really suggest that you read all of both of them. I know it is overwhelming to start with, but it will serve you well over time:
Sorry for confusing you!