Hi. I’ve had my hive for about 4 months and the nuc has filled all the frames nicely. I put the super on a month ago and not much action there but there isn’t much in flower at the moment. I’m wondering if I should remove the super and put another brood box on instead? All the reading suggests I should build the hive up before winter and then come spring they will be ready to make lots of honey in the super.
We have a pretty cold winter and have a couple of months before it gets cool. What do you all think?
Welcome to the forum and to beekeeping, Sarah.
A couple of questions to gauge the situation.
When you added the super, was the brood box brimming with bees and every frame full of brood and food? Often beginners add the super before the colony has built the numbers to maintain the extra space.
When you say not much happening in the super, are there no bees or they’re not working the frames? If there’s no bees, check your brood box to see how they’re doing as soon as you can. I’d suspect they might have struggled with the extra space and if there’s a dearth, they might be short of stores.
A good configuration for our relatively mild winters (I have friends in Minnesota that would wear shorts and t shirt in our winter) is an ideal (short super) above the excluder for the bees. When that’s full add the Flow if there’s a nectar flow on.
I’d build them up and get an ideal or two full before winter if you can. Then you’ll be set for next spring.
Thanks for the reply aussiemike.
When I added the super, the brood box wasn’t brimming and the frames were about 70% full.
There are plenty of bees in the super and have been for the last few weeks, but no honey yet.
I like the sound of a short super, which they should be able to build out before winter arrives but wouldn’t it be good to give more room for the queen to lay as well as build honey?
Just i case you have not checked, I thought I had zero honey because there was no honey observable in any of the windows. When I opened up the super to inspect I found that neither of the outer frames were used (near the windows) but all the others were 90% full (up to the last 5cm before the extraction side), which made it look like they, too, were empty).
Thanks John. I did pull one out the other day, just to check, and no honey.
There are those that insist on two box brood chambers because that’s the way they’ve always done it. I made a video explaining why I use singles. Take a look and see what you think. https://youtu.be/UsAfyRkytGQ?si=RwgpitSPZOHCBfko
Mike
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