Clearing supers

[MrB]

During the season we put on more supers as the colony expands, and of course, one of the reasons for this is to prevent overcrowding.
So, what about overcrowding when the supers are removed
There must be a time before wet supers are given back to the bees when a lot more bees are stuffed into the brood box??
What do you think?
Thanks

 

[Tim1606]

Good question, never thought of it like that.
We usually put a drawn super on as we take one off.
Not sure if that is the right way to go about it but thats how we have always done it. It works for us.

 

[Queens59]

I'm a softy and always leave a super for the bees...

 

[RoofTops]

Wherever possible you should avoid clearing them down into the brood box as at this time of the year there is probably simply not enough room for them all.

An empty super under the supers you are clearing is the answer although with a heavy crop this may not be possible if all the supers have been filled.

 

[mbc]

when clearing supers a box of foundation can alleviate crowding in the brood box as alot of young wax working bees will leave the brood box to draw it - unlike early in the season when a super of foundation is often ignored as the bees arent ready to draw out foundation sometimes resulting in crowding as the bees store anything coming in in the brood box limiting space for the queen to lay.
Is a full super considered as 'space' by the bees ? If I had to read their little minds I'd say "not as much space as a super needing some work to fill it "

 

[Dishmop]

I dont use national hives but surely the obvious thing is that when you take a box off, you have taken half (or third) of the space that the bees had, and therefore you need to replace that space???

 

[YorkshireBees]

If a super is full and capped I don't believe it will be providing much space for the bees! Personally I don't think they just go and hangout in a full super.

If you have a full super then you should already have at least one more empty / part full super on aswell. I believe in making sure they have a super to work on and I try to return the extracted (wet) supers to them asap after extraction.

 

[Dishmop]

If a super is full and capped I don't believe it will be providing much space for the bees! Personally I don't think they just go and hangout in a full super.

Looking at my obs hive I see one frame full and capped..... approx 2 dozen bees on it..
Another frame is only one third capped but many many times the amount of bees working on it...

So... been there, done that, now give us some more to do... Lets go and start on the new spare room...