Hi - my name is David and I have been keeping bees in Warrandyte, Melbourne for about 3 years. I have two brood boxes with a flow super. I have a question - unlike previous years, the flow hive has filled 3 times since spring has sprung. I had a fully capped set of flow hive frames in October 5, which I harvested. It then filled up again by Nov 5, so I harvested again. Its now nearly Dec 5, and its filled up again! I did not expect this so quickly, and I did not want to extract any more honey so that the girls could keep that for themselves. So should I just leave it for them?
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No. Take it. Your bees need somewhere to store the nectar they are collecting during what sounds like a great season. If you’re really concerned take 4 frames leave 2.
If you’re wanting to leave honey behind get a hybrid super to add it to your hive. That way you get 3 flow frames and they get 4 traditional frames.
What reason do you have for your concern? An impending dearth? Or just the fact this year is good but the last couple were average to bad? Something else?
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Take the honey till about April and you can leave the super on with honey stores for the bees over winter. If you don’t take the honey the hive will quickly become honey bound and that will introduce possible issues. If the hive has no more space left for the bees to store honey they can’t just ‘turn off’ the foraging instinct so you might find they will swarm.
Give the surplus honey to friends or family or a neighbor.
Welcome to the forum David, lots of nice folks here happy to give you advice. Cheers
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Thanks Peter - thats very helpful advice.
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