Adding supers early

I was reading the "what did you do at the apiary" thread and someone was speaking of adding supers early, then others started saying this was a bad idea.

This made me wonder, surely if you added supers with drawn frames, wouldn't this allow the bees to move excess stores up into the super, and allow for more laying space for the queen in the brood box. She could even lay in the super as it is empty.
I don't really see how this can be a bad thing, as my boxes are still heavy with stores.

rickyd20 said:

I don't really see how this can be a bad thing, as my boxes are still heavy with stores.

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I can tell with 50 years experience that it is very bad idea.

I have seen how bees must destroy even 30% of their brood if I add super too early. Heat escapes to loft and bees cannot keep 36C in every corner.
So I add second brood box under brood.

Heat is the most important factor in spring build up. I have seen it when I have heated hives with terrarium heaters in spring.

The more you have brood, the more you have foragers 6 weeks later.

Firstly - why are your hives still overloaded with stores?
Did you feed them loads of sugar syrup in the autumn?
If so, you don't want that contaminating this year's crop by leaving them 'move it up' to the supers.
Did you thymolise your syrup?
if so - read my last statement.
Did they forage late on ivy?
if so - read my last statement.
Did you treat with apiguard in the autumn?
If so, regardless whether it's honey or syrup stores - you certainly don't want that contaminating this year's crop.[B/]
Now to the matter of putting supers on early - there's early and there's early.
if the brood box is over full of stores, then remove some of the full frames, give them foundation or preferably drawn frames to give them more room (also avoids contaminating this years crop).

The season hasn't really begun yet, it's still cold and all you have in the hive is the winter bees (now feeling their age) trying their best to rear as much brood as possible before they fall of the perch, they will be nowhere near filling the brood box up with brood or bees to be anywhere near 'a bit cozy' let alone short of space. all of a sudden you rip the roof off and slam loads of empty space on top so now, on top of trying to rear brood, forage for pollen and water they have a massive space on top to keep warm. And no it's nothing like a 'natural brood nest' as there they would be up the top with the empty space underneath not at the bottom with the space on top for all the heat to rise up in.
Now in three or four week maybe, when the colony is much more vigorous, you might get away with it with but a little check in progress. Remember most of the big snows we get have been from this time onwards.

My personal opinion - daft idea all round.

Edit - see Finman got there first with even more common sense

Bees move stores to suit themselves, not the beekeeper.
Why do you think the queen might lay in an empty drawn super above the existing brood nest at the beginning of spring when there isn't the food to facilitate brood rearing?

.
The colony is in bad trouple if it occupies only 5 frames. So it must heat 4 times bigger room to keep itself warm.

If that is case, take extra room and ectra frames off and limit the colony space with dummy board. Or put the colony into poly nuc. Then colony has best build up.

But extra food frames. Take them off what ever they are.

Thanks for the insight. I was aware the cold would be a problem, but not to the extent where brood would be wasted.

rickyd20 said:

Thanks for the insight. I was aware the cold would be a problem, but not to the extent where brood would be wasted.

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Beeks tend to think day temperature, but day might be +15C but at night temp goes near 0C. Strong winds are bad too. There are warm weeks and cold weeks.

With electrict heating I have seen how heat helps colonies.

Even if I have experience, it is difficult to see, when it is right time to give a super. Sometimes it takes a week that bees can occupye the Super. But on another hand, bees need space that swarming fever does not arise.

jenkinsbrynmair said:

My personal opinion - daft idea all round.

Edit - see Finman got there first with even more common sense

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+ 1 and for once I agree with Finman !!

Unless, of course, you live in subtropical Cheshire and have 35 years of massive honey crops behind you and your association ex Chairman says it's the right thing to do ... which all trumps every sensible beekeeper on here I think ....

1) There are several comments both here and on other forums (gardening as well as beekeeping) about the lovely weather yesterday, when preliminary hive operations were possible.

2) People have been reporting swarms in April in recent years... now when do you think the brood-rearing (and congestion) started which caused those?

3) Have you ever looked at bees in a wild colony? In some there are years of old sealed honey stretching up the bee-less combs and at this time of year (in fact at any time of year) the cluster is at the bottom of the remaining stores (above the empty comb left behind as they ate their way upwards.) If there is any difference at all I might expect less convection of warm air up between empty cells than up between the smooth faces of sealed stores due to the friction/turbulence resulting from the walls of the open cells.

3) I would prefer to stick a super on to guarantee enough space, rather than interfere with the brood box to swap frames around this early. And putting foundation in to a brood box at this time of year? Now that really is a daft idea.

4) if there is ivy pollen in the stores the bees will use or move the fructose syrup and throw out the glucose granules, so no real risk to the honey in the box above, then. If you imagine that your winter stores will not end up in the box above, then how do you explain the green honey in supers that resulted from the feeding of dyed subsidised sugar a year or two before I started?

5) why is a dummy board next to a cluster (maybe with empty space behind it) better for the bees than an empty comb? That weighs almost nothing and provides lots of resistance to convection. We don't worry about a full frame of stores in the same position which is far heavier and more thermally conductive so will soak up lots more heat.

And lastly, unless we have a prolonged wicked wintry blast (a - if we have one of those it usually starts in February rather than March and b - most people here are working in the UK rather than Finland) I think a decent colony in a sound hive (not draughty) has enough comb and bees around it to insulate the brood from lower overnight temperatures. I usually super early and quite often have 2 or 3 supers of spring honey, one of which might well be the bees' left-overs from the autumn - and no, I don't feed thymol in syrup, in fact with 14x12s I very rarely feed syrup at all. The autumn nectar flow and putting extracted supers back on for the bees to clean seems to get them heavy enough.

pargyle said:

+ 1 and for once I agree with Finman !!

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Steady - the world might tip off its axis!

How do you expect to be banned in time for the busy season if you and Finman keep agreeing with each other!

CVB

charlievictorbravo said:

Steady - the world might tip off its axis!

How do you expect to be banned in time for the busy season if you and Finman keep agreeing with each other!

CVB

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It's a worry ... Is he getting less conventional or am I getting more conventional ?

Weeell, someone is talking carp, and it is neither Finman nor JBM. A frame of foundation at the right time is the way to go, if no drawn comb is available to swap in.

Minimum head space until there is a surplus nectar flow. Simple as that. Has someone still got matchsticks under the crownboard? I use dividers rather than dummy boards - much better in these circumstances.

pargyle said:

It's a worry ... Is he getting less conventional or am I getting more conventional ?

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Don't worry.your methods are ancient enough to be conventional.

AndrewE said:

3) Have you ever looked at bees in a wild colony? In some there are years of old sealed honey stretching up the bee-less combs and at this time of year (in fact at any time of year) the cluster is at the bottom of the remaining stores (above the empty comb left behind as they ate their way upwards.)

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Well done - you've just skilfully shot your own argument of piling loads of empty space on top of the cluster down in flames and proven that you are speaking a load of b*ll*x.
And as for the rest of the post - pure drivel!

But then methinks we have a troll lurking here

AndrewE said:

how do you explain the green honey in supers that resulted from the feeding of dyed subsidised sugar a year or two before I started?
.

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AndrewE said:

but at some time in my 35 years with bees

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Now maths has never been my strong point (I always struggled with calculus and pure maths when i studied for my a levels)
But Sugar rationing finished in 1953 and the dyeing of sugar for beekeepers was abandoned long before that if it was ever done on any kind of large scale
(My grandfather never once mentioned the fact that my grandmother couldn't use the 'bee sugar' to bottle her fruits because of any dye - he used to just sacrifice a lot of the honey crop to leave as winter stores rather than waste good sugar) you just went to your local food office with proof of colonies and were given a permit fot the extra ten pounds of sugar per hive (it was never subsidised).
Anyway - let's just take 1953 as the rationing cut-off point

AndrewE said:

a year or two before I started
.

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add the

AndrewE said:

35 years[/B] with bees

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.........................................
and b*gger me - the ink is still wet on my queen's commission, there must be a better way of wasting fifteen minutes every morning than standing in front of a mirror shaving (how can I address that) and what's all this nonsense out in the gulf with that loonatic Madas insane ranting on that overproduction of oil by Kuwait and the UAE is economic warfare against Iraq. well, it's all a flash in the pan and will settle down soon - but i bet the fuel producers will use it as an excuse to nudge petrol prices up closer to £2.00 a gallon!

Finman said:

Don't worry.your methods are ancient enough to be conventional.

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Thank you ....

pargyle said:

Thank you ....

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Frames without foundation is over 150 y old concept.

jenkinsbrynmair said:

Now maths has never been my strong point (I always struggled with calculus and pure maths when i studied for my a levels)
But Sugar rationing finished in 1953 and the dyeing of sugar for beekeepers was abandoned long before that if it was ever done on any kind of large scale
(My grandfather never once mentioned the fact that my grandmother couldn't use the 'bee sugar' to bottle her fruits because of any dye - he used to just sacrifice a lot of the honey crop to leave as winter stores rather than waste good sugar) you just went to your local food office with proof of colonies and were given a permit fot the extra ten pounds of sugar per hive (it was never subsidised).
Anyway - let's just take 1953 as the rationing cut-off point add the .........................................
and b*gger me - the ink is still wet on my queen's commission, there must be a better way of wasting fifteen minutes every morning than standing in front of a mirror shaving (how can I address that) and what's all this nonsense out in the gulf with that loonatic Madas insane ranting on that overproduction of oil by Kuwait and the UAE is economic warfare against Iraq. well, it's all a flash in the pan and will settle down soon - but i bet the fuel producers will use it as an excuse to nudge petrol prices up closer to £2.00 a gallon!

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That would have been when I did my beekeeping course as a teenager. The only coloured sugar I had back then was candy floss and that was pink not green.

"Frames without foundation" is either empty space or a top-bar hive. The simple question was why do we assume a dummy board is better than an empty brood or honey comb for providing an insulating outer edge to a brood nest?

Regarding someone's comments who admits he couldn't cope with A level maths, maybe he can't cope with the english language either. Which bit of a wild cluster or brood nest being at the foot of the remaining stores but above the emptied combs is wrong? And what kind of a barrier is there to air movement and heat rising up from that cluster? None.

The BBC local history page on Beekeeping in Swindon during WWII (sorry I'm not allowed to post links yet)
says there was a problem from green honey and the "History & How It All Started" page of Shaftesbury and Gillingham Beekeepers' Association webpage says:
[In 1982] "It is also recorded in a meeting held on 18th March 1982 that club members were to receive a grant of £30 provided by the EEC as a sugar subsidy to feed their bees in the winter. "

Given that it was, as I said, a few years before I started beekeeping I think I can be forgiven for misunderstanding the 1980's coverage, even if the media reported it correctly. I now think that I probably mis-heard or misunderstood a report saying that beekeepers did not want dyed sugar because of the earlier honey problems.

regarding my "b*ll*x ...and the rest of the post - pure drivel!" I shall not waste my time here any more. I'll keep it for the speaking and tutoring I get asked to do.

Is there a welsh version of the saying "There are none so blind as those who will not see"? I've never met such a blinkered or arrogant lot as those who seem to dominate this forum. Beginners would be far better off learning from the much more open-minded discussions that go on elsewhere. Putting a different point of view is not trolling, but abusing someone who simply puts up ideas or analyses of a problem and then defends them is.

AndrewE said:

which bit of a wild cluster or brood nest being at the foot of the remaining stores but above the emptied combs is wrong? .

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None of it - but your claim that putting two empty supers on top of a brood nest in early March is the same as the wild nest scenario obviously is wrong.
as for being blinkered - there's only one here claiming that his method is right and everyone else is wrong.