Honey in supers but nothing in brood

[Stedic]

2/5 of my colonies have 2 supers on (1 full each, one half filled and half capped) but neither hive has anything in their brood boxes. Queens seem to be reducing laying rate but bees are not backfilling.

I guess there is no flow to fill from, which is fine. What I don't want to do is starve them.

I think I'll take the full supers off next week. I'm happy to leave the rest (or frankly all of it!) for them, but how do I get them to move it down? Can I just put it above the crown board and bruise it? Do I need to clear the bees first?

Once supers are out of the way I will feed if needed prior to ivy.

 

[will]

I don’t take supers of until about 3rd week in August any uncapped honey goes under brood they will take it up, they don’t normally take it down

 

[Eyeman]

2/5 of my colonies have 2 supers on (1 full each, one half filled and half capped) but neither hive has anything in their brood boxes. Queens seem to be reducing laying rate but bees are not backfilling.

I guess there is no flow to fill from, which is fine. What I don't want to do is starve them.

I think I'll take the full supers off next week. I'm happy to leave the rest (or frankly all of it!) for them, but how do I get them to move it down? Can I just put it above the crown board and bruise it? Do I need to clear the bees first?

Once supers are out of the way I will feed if needed prior to ivy.

Don't complain. Those are the bees you want. All the honey going into the supers at this time of the year and plenty of room in the brood box for the queen to lay. Enjoy it while it lasts! Several of my colonies behave in this way and I try to breed from them providing other characteristics are good. In my area around the end of August the brood box will start to fill up. Don't know what the foraging it like in your neck of the wood and whether you will need to feed or not?

 

[Beagle23]

As has already been said, what you're seeing is good space management from the bees. Of course they don't know that you're going to whisk away all of their stores so make sure you don't take the supers too late as you want to give them a chance to fill the brood frames with whatever forage they can get before the autumn

 

[Hebeegeebee]

If they want it down, they will move it down.

 

[Stedic]

Thanks everyone.

I decide my first action was inaction! We had a really hot few days, 30+ on each of the days I could inspect or take honey. I decided to leave them as much space a possible. We've now got cooler weather and a bit of rain, which we desperately need.

What I'm going to do (I think) is inspect the bees on Monday morning. If I have colonies with little food in the brood box, I think I will clear the supers into an eke with a small bit of fondant.

I don't want to feed them until they have had chance to collect anything that is around at the moment, but I don't want them to starve either. After a week I can see if they've found their own nectar source and if not I can always switch to a liquid feed before any treatments. I'll give them the wet supers above the crown board as well, so I hope they'll take some from there.

Does this seems reasonable? The fondant might be a faff that I don't really need, but I don't think we have any flow at the moment.