adding supers

[treebee]

I am new to beekeeping this year I have two hives both collected from swarms earlier in the year. Hive 1 has one super with 4 empty frames, all the rest pretty much full. When if at all should I add another super and should I be expecting to extract any honey from this super? Hive two is smaller with just a brood box, again with 4-5 empty brood frames. Should i be putting a super on this hive?

 

[grizzly]

Hi Treebee

What hive type do you have?, i use Langstroth, if i had a super with only half the frames full i would leave those frames for the bees, i would forget about a honey harvest. and i doubt you would need to place another on now.
In the hive with the super, how many brood frames are the bees on ? do they have any stores down there ?

Second hive, dont bother with a super, sounds like they have much to do, give them a feed if you have not done so already, help them build up their stores, the syrup may even stimulate the Queen to increase her rate of lay, neither sound particularly full to me.

 

[thurrock bees]

Hi Treebee

Second hive, dont bother with a super, sounds like they have much to do, give them a feed if you have not done so already, help them build up their stores, the syrup may even stimulate the Queen to increase her rate of lay, neither sound particularly full to me.

hi, i agree with this, the frist hive i would remove the honey before its too late, then return the 'wet' super and a rapid feeder give the bees a chance to store the feed (sugar syrup) before it gets cold out, i would also personnally do this to my other hive ( no.2) and give them both as much feed as poss. till the super is full. you can never give too much feed. you dont what them to die from lack of food?

if u dont understand, then call me on 07999616442

 

[treebee]

Thanks, Grizzly and Thurrock bees.

Hive 1, I think I will extract a small amount of honey from the nearly full super then get on with feeding. There is about three frames of stores in the brood chamber and the rest is brood of various stages.
Hive 2, Feed feed feed seems to be the way to go.

Also, I have another query. On both hives I have an open mesh floor with a removable varroa mite inspection tray. Do you leave this tray in all the time or only when you are assessing the level of varroa mites. Somebody told me it can cause problems by reducing the ventilation causing condensation.

Thanks,

 

[MJBee]

Tray under the varroa mesh only when monitoring mite drop and when administering Apiguard/thymol. Also any holes in the crown board should be covered to prevent the "chimney draught effect"