Above or below

[beepig]

In my fifth year and still I cannot fathom super below brood or above.. pros and cons?

 

[Eyeman]

In my fifth year and still I cannot fathom super below brood or above.. pros and cons?

Put it above then there is every chance you will store some honey
Put it below and there is every chance you will not store any honey

 

[Finman]

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Bees instinct is to fill honey stores from up to down.

And its instinct is to move rippen honey up.

 

[B+.]

In my fifth year and still I cannot fathom super below brood or above.. pros and cons?

Think of it this way: heat rises so the warmest part of the hive in winter will be towards the top. They store their food where they can access it (where it is warmest) in winter.If they stored it at the bottom, they would have to move lower in the hive where it may be colder to access the food.
Beekeepers can take advantage of this by placing boxes above the brood to collect a honey crop, or, placing unfinished supers below the brood box at the end of the season. The bees don't like their stores there so they move them up above the cluster where they can access them during winter.

 

[enrico]

This is the way I see it
If you have a brood box full of stores and the super is extra stores then if you put it on the bottom they will use the super first leaving it empty as winter progresses
If you have a brood box that is not full of stores and put the super at the bottom they will move the stores up to fill the brood box and use the rest as winter progresses.
Both these last ones leave the super almost empty at the end of winter.
However, if the winter is mild and they don't use any stores in the brood box then you will get brood in the super in spring.
If you put the super on the top then they may or may not use the stores in it. If they do then there will be brood in spring, if not then there won't.
None of us know how cold the winter will be.
In theory a brood box full of stores should be ample to keep your bees over winter. If you panic after a hard winter then add fondant.
If you have stores in a super them extract them and use sugar to fill the brood box in the autumn. The honey is more valuable to you than sugar.
As Finman says, the bees will put honey in the top most cells as they become vacant of brood during the autumn and continue to store it downwards, But they will lay brood in the first vacant cells under the honey in the spring. They will eat stores from the bottom up, so it depends how far up they get before brood starts to be layed in the spring! Take from that what you can. It is mainly guess work and instinct.

E

 

[Beefriendly]

One advantage of super over brood box in winter is it leaves a shorter distance to a gap, allowing the cluster to move around easier as they digest stores.
Under and they have to navigate the length or depth of a brood frame to find a gap to move around.
Either configurations seem to work fine in our clement winters, it's the harsh ones where this super over brood configuration might make a difference. As Enrico says we don't know how cold our winter we will be until we get it.

Perhaps more relevant to wooden hives than poly ones.

 

[Finman]

Think of it this way: heat rises so the warmest part of the hive in winter will be towards the top. They store their food where they can access it (where it is warmest) in winter.If they stored it at the bottom, they would have to move lower in the hive where it may be colder to access the food.
Beekeepers can take advantage of this by placing boxes above the brood to collect a honey crop, or, placing unfinished supers below the brood box at the end of the season. The bees don't like their stores there so they move them up above the cluster where they can access them during winter.

If the room is too big compared to cluster, bees collect stores around the brood, and upper box will be quite empty.

 

[domino]

Over winter I don't think it matters. I have, however, noticed that my bees clear the bottom box out and in spring it is empty. So if I have two brood boxes I'll move old comb into a bottom box so I can change in out come spring.

 

[B+.]

Yes. I do this too. I try to get nice, new comb which is full of worker cells, and, preferably full of stores, in the top box. They move up onto this and the bottom box is empty in the spring. This is a good way to cycle-out any damaged combs that has too much drone comb in them.

 

[Finman]

Over winter I don't think it matters. I have, however, noticed that my bees clear the bottom box out and in spring it is empty. So if I have two brood boxes I'll move old comb into a bottom box so I can change in out come spring.

I do not know what maters... I move all brood frames into lower box, because winter cluster starts from the point of last brood.

To change old combs is not main thing in wintering. Old combs are easy to take away when you use them as honey combs.

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[Finman]

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My basic method is,that I try to act according bees' instincts. Bees follow their own style, and they loose lots of energy when they try to correct the order of the hive.


All kind of feeding with dry sugar, put super under brood and so on. I cannot find idea in it.

When I do not use excluder. I have seen what bees tend to do, and it is far from that what guys advice.
For example now in one hive I should use excluder over two lowest boxes, but now those boxes are full of pollen. Brood are in third and fourth boxes. Pollen is most valuable product of the hive. Used next April.

Super combs are full of pollen... Problems? Use super box as brood box and bees eate pollen.