Of course but most of the beekeepers here are in the U.K. where leaving the bees an empty brood box but a full super might well lead to an early demise if the colony.
why would a full super lead to demise of a colony? The bees will eat what they need and the rest will remain in the spring to be used as food for all the brood or it can be extracted as an early (or late) crop. I have not read any study that claim a colony would die of too much food, only too little. But pls enlighten me in case I misunderstood you, preferable with some studies to back up any claim. In my humble view it is always better to leave too much food than too little - usually we leave about 20 kg of honey + pollen which have always showed to be enough for our bees. As for when the bees goes into cluster clearly it depends on how soon the temperature decreases in the hive, a poly have better insulation and hence it takes longer time before the temperature drops. Eventually it will and here we have had 1 month with below zero temperatures with -15 as the lowest so I'm pretty sure they have clustered by now.
What is the point of leaving the brood box empty of stores ?
Now we go in circles. Pls read the study I enclosed earlier for details and references. When the cold is really setting in the bees need to cluster and in order to do so in an efficient way they need empty cells. If the food is all around them they are forced to waste energu to heat up the complete food store which increases food consumption and end of the day may cause dysentery due to the rectum being filled with water from the metabolism. So, the bees prefer to have the food above and then when they cluster they go into the empty cells below the food store and eat their way up. You can have some food also in the lower box but then preferable in the combs close to the sides of the box. This food would then be extra food to move up in case there are some mild days or to use as extra food for the spring brood. But there have to be enough empty cells for the cluster to work in a good way.
Ah then we do misunderstand each other. That situation doesn’t arise in the U.K. there are always empty cells in the brood box by the time real winter hits us and a real winter is uncommon south of Hadrians wall.
well the studies are of bees - not of humansunfortunately bees not reading any human study and nearly every single hive (because of position ,location,situation etc) and bees family behaviour completely different, and to explain this human building wierd stories and is surprised why bees not agree
. Obviously location and type of bees have a big impact and if the area have a soft winter then the bees probably survive regardless what the beekeeper does. But when the winter are a bit tougher then one need to understand how the bees prefer it in order to give them best chances to survive. To force them to heat up 20 kg food when they sit in confinement for 8-10 weeks is not a good strategy. But even locations with soft winters have pretty high winter losses which to me is an indication that it is possible to improve the strategies. But lets stop here - everyone can of course do as they wish. For those who actually are open to fact based strategies pls read the study from Randy.
