Extraction Steps to Hive

[Ceph]

When you extract do you just take the supers off, extract and put them back to have the comb cleaned up by the bees?

Or do you swap a full super for a drawn comb super (which I dont have) or foundation super to allow them to carry on in the flow?

My concern would be that they go from building up stores within an extended hive and then they go from quite some space to none when you remove all the supers.

This must have an effect on them as their space suddenly becomes very small, from having say 2 or 3 supers to then just one super or just a brood box.

 

[YorkshireBees]

IMHO you should be rotating supers, ie always having at least one with space in on the hive. So in my case (time allowing) I would be taking away and extracting 2-3 supers but leaving at least one on the hive for them to store in.

Extraction, in my case would be done in 24hrs or less and the empty (wet) supers placed back on their original hives shortly after.

In terms of removing fulls supers and leaving / adding a super of foundation only, well in a lot of beekeepers cases they have no choice, mine included. Having said that I plan to use the frames from the 1st extracted super as 'seed' frames. ie place 1 or 2 in a super with foundation to encourage the bees into the super to draw the foundation.

Also unless you are completely lucky, you may have most frames full and capped in a super or there may be a few (1-4) that are only partially capped. Again I would use these seeded amongst foundation and just remove / extract the full frames.

Sorry for the long answer, just my opinions

 

[Poly Hive]

Lets assume you have one super of capped honey and a partly worked one above.

Switch them around and using a clearer board clear the one to be extracted.

Spin out the honey and replace the now empty super above but with half the combs interspersed with foundation.

Keep doing it. That is the way to help the bees keep out of mischief (making swarm cells) and helps them to build nice neat combs.

PH

 

[Vergilius]

Ceph,

I don't think that your profile pic helps you with regards to asking people to answer your questions.
I would change it.

Just my thoughts,

Ben P

 

[freethorpe bees]

PH, would you put the extracted super back on top, or directly above the bb?

 

[itchyhives]

Ben have you never watched the Goonies?