How quickly can bees fill a super?

[Zante]

I put supers on my hives last weekend, brood box not quite full, but all foundation drawn and a good flow on. The supers had only foundation, so I suppose quite a lot of nectar will have to go in there before it's full.

What are the chances of having to prepare another super to add this weekend?

 

[Michael Palmer]

A number of years ago, in a particularly good year, I saw a colony draw, fill, and cap a deep box of foundation...in a week.

 

[Vortex]

I hived a prime swarm last year in a 14x12 box.. that's 11 frames.
They drew all 11 frames and filled 8 of them with nectar in 8 days..the other 3 were filled with brood.

 

[REDWOOD]

Depends on the size of the colony, a double brood working a mostly drawn super can fill and cap in a couple of days, a single colony in a week usually

 

[Zante]

They're in dadant boxes, nucs that I bought this year and hives about five weeks ago. They were fairly quick in drawing the brood frames I gave them, but that was during the acacia flow, I'm not sure what's around now although lime and chestnut are round the corner.

 

[Zante]

DOH!

I was worried I had to get extra supers, but I have sic supers on site some of them with drawn frames!

I forgot the old folks who own the land said I could use their old equipment.

 

[deanrpwaacs]

Drawn frames are gold . Bees can get straight on with filling them

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[Hedgerow Honey]

Two hives 14x12 filled and capped two supers each on osr in five days but had done nothing for the previous three weeks.

 

[Beagle23]

I suppose it depends on the bees, mine for instance seem to be taking about 2 years, lazy so and so's

 

[YorkshireBees]

I hived a prime swarm last year in a 14x12 box.. that's 11 frames.
They drew all 11 frames and filled 8 of them with nectar in 8 days..the other 3 were filled with brood.

Swarms imho are more prone to work harder. I hived a swarm on 30th April in a 6 frame poly nuc on mainly old drawn comb and later moved it to a full size (10 frames) Polyhive and within 10days they had drawn all frames and are up to 8 frames of bias!

They are getting demareed tomorrow and supers added!

ps lovely calm bees aswell!

 

[HoopersHouse]

Gosh that's fast YorkshireBees! So glad you asked the question Zante. I'd better check our hived swarm quick.

Is this weather dependant as it's been sunshine, showers, hot & cold here all week?

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[Plenty of honey]

Gosh that's fast YorkshireBees! So glad you asked the question Zante. I'd better check our hived swarm quick.

Is this weather dependant as it's been sunshine, showers, hot & cold here all week?

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Swarms are a different beast altogether,( as Yorkrshirebees just said) they are monster comb builders. if you have supers you want to get builtout, stick a load on and feed em tons of syrup, they just keep going. Its a lot cheaper to build out frames with syrup rather than honey. If i remember rightly, its 7 kilos of honey to 1 kilo of wax built. i hived a monster swarm last week. their drawing a whole lot of comb now, probably two supers worth in a week.

 

[YorkshireBees]

Swarms are a different beast altogether,( as Yorkrshirebees just said) they are monster comb builders. if you have supers you want to get builtout, stick a load on and feed em tons of syrup, they just keep going. Its a lot cheaper to build out frames with syrup rather than honey. If i remember rightly, its 7 kilos of honey to 1 kilo of wax built. i hived a monster swarm last week. their drawing a whole lot of comb now, probably two supers worth in a week.

Exactly that.

In fact the next decent swarm I get (if any) will be building a load of new brood comb for me!

 

[Zante]

That's interesting. I'll have to do that should I ever catch a swarm...