cleaning empty supers

[paulgid]

i have put empty supers back on hive for bee,s to clean they have cleaned but are refilling them.there is little stores in bb what is best way to make bee,s put stores in bb rather than back in super as i need to feed them and treat for varroa .
regards paul

 

[thedeaddiplomat]

Put the crown board under the super. They should then take the stores down to the brood box - assuming there is room there?

 

[paulgid]

forgot to mention i did try crown board under super

 

[Matt1971]

Went to a bee keeping meeting last month it was about extracting honey. There was two thoughts on cleaning supers one was the way you have described, the other way that they mentioned was to put the super under the brood box with the queen excluder on top.

 

[oliver90owner]

The nadir method works every time (slow for granulated honey, but works) . Over is easier, but may or may not work. I had two adjacent colonies, similar sizes, where I put them 'over' last year - one cleaned them up, the other stored nectar.

RAB

 

[MJBee]

Some colonies will clean up a super that is placed over the crown board but others need a bit more separation to get them to clean up.

I try over the crown board first and if that doesn't work I place an empty super box (150mm eke) on the crown board then the wet super. Have not had a failure - yet

 

[Hivemaker.]

there is little stores in bb what is best way to make bee,s put stores in bb rather than back in super as i need to feed them and treat for varroa .
regards paul

Put the supers back on in the spring,and get on with treating and feeding in the next month.

 

[stevebrowning]

I usually put all my supers together a small distance from the hives and the bees just clean them out nicely, you can treat for varroa and feed at the same time with no bother.
steve

 

[Hivemaker.]

I usually put all my supers together a small distance from the hives and the bees just clean them out nicely, you can treat for varroa and feed at the same time with no bother.
steve

I knew a guy who did that,he had 45 hives,and every one of them had EFB,he managed to easily spread it far and wide,share it if you like, by open feeding his supers to everyone in the area....the bee inspector killed all his bees.

 

[stevebrowning]

I suppose it all depends on how healthy your bees are to start with, my tutor had been keeping bees for over 65 years and never had a problem!

 

[Headnavigator]

Some colonies will clean up a super that is placed over the crown board but others need a bit more separation to get them to clean up.

I try over the crown board first and if that doesn't work I place an empty super box (150mm eke) on the crown board then the wet super. Have not had a failure - yet

Tried that one and within a week had an empty super full of bees building wild comb and more wild comb in the super above that I was trying to get them to clean. All this when they still have a couple of undrawn frames in the brood box. Psychotic bees?

 

[oliver90owner]

In that case I would say stupid but lucky.

They can be as healthy as you think, but the other bees around the area might not be. Just one colony may have a nasty disease developing - and that could easily turn into ten colonies.
Sooner or later you will be caught out.

There have been numerous reports of nucs being dispersed far and wide, and later being found at risk of EFB. Bee Inspectors have been checking out quite a lot of supplied nucs, this year (at least a few reports on this forum).

Amazing how some think they are immune to disease.

 

[VEG]

Your tutor should not be tutoring if he suggests putting supers out like that. Doubt very much you will find any worthwhile association teaching that sort of bad beekeeping.

 

[David P]

I suppose it all depends on how healthy your bees are to start with, my tutor had been keeping bees for over 65 years and never had a problem!

Yup and i bet his bees are totally free from varroa as well

 

[stevebrowning]

This is why i joined the forum to get other peoples views/findings. Just goes to show that just because you've been doing something for a long time does'nt mean your an expert in said matters!!

 

[VEG]

lol you will find many views on things here. Glad you are open to a different way of doing things. Oh and keep asking questions.

 

[Polyanwood]

You will learn fast and do well steveB

 

[Alex Brown]

I also once put some wet super frames outside the hives for the bees to clean up on similar (dodgy) advice, and have since learned the error of my ways.

Aside from the risk of disease, it attracted hundreds of wasps who also then took a keen interest in my hives. They also seemed to enjoy chewing up the wax, making it unusable to return to the bees.

Won't be doing that again!

 

[tonybloke]

Glad to see you are open to suggestions, SteveB !

welcome to the forum