Logistics - thinking ahead

[Levitt53]

My bees weren't robbed - yay! Anyway now I'm thinking ahead to how I'm going to deal with the honey at the end of the season. 3 hives with varying amounts of honey in 6 supers. I intend to nadir a super on two of them but hopefully there will be one super for me. I would like to swap frames about to give the most amount of non-capped honey in the nadired supers but I'm unsure of the logistics of it all. Do I need to clear all the supers of bees and take the lot in the house to sort them out? Or can I just do it all on site with and nadir them there and then? Presumably any bees who end up in the wrong hive would be at the bottom so could make a swift exit? Or should I not be swapping the honey around and just nadir what each has. The part filled frames I will keep to give them a head start next year but I presume I don't need to remember which hive it came from?

I know I'm ahead of myself and am obviously no doing this yet. The weather is still pants here so they might take it all yet. I only had 2 hives last year both with only 1 part filled super last year so it was simple. Just trying to understand logistics.

 

[Erichalfbee]

I have always nadired supers after sorting them. I don't like waving uncapped frames about with wasps in the air.
But last year I had a few mouldy frames so I tried getting the bees to take stores down from the top. Previously it hasn't worked but so far this year it's working a treat. uncapped frames in a super spread quite widely apart, so that's about 5/6 frames on top of a wooden crown board with a two bee space diameter hole over the feeder hole. I've managed to clear lots of duff part frames into supers below.

One thing to consider is that nadired honey might attract robbing

 

[Levitt53]

That's a good idea. I thought I'd be able to take the top super of three off my big hive today but there were odd bits of honey in there. I could get them to condense three into two that way which would make sense this time of year.

 

[Poly Hive]

What is the honey worth to you and how much is sugar?

PH

 

[drex]

That's a good idea. I thought I'd be able to take the top super of three off my big hive today but there were odd bits of honey in there. I could get them to condense three into two that way which would make sense this time of year.

Depending on the flow, a week or so before extracting, I do condense down my supers, which concentrates the bees on filling and capping the combs, moving frames about as needed. That way I know most of the supers which I take home to extract are ready. Saves wasted effort.

Like Erica, I put supers above a just open crown board, to get the bees to clean them out. Has never failed yet. After 2-3 days they are usually ready to store after burning sulphur strips in them

 

[Erichalfbee]

Like Erica, I put supers above a just open crown board, to get the bees to clean them out. Has never failed yet. After 2-3 days they are usually ready to store after burning sulphur strips in them

I do it to get uncapped honey down into a part capped super or down into the brood box. Extracted supers I like to store wet and those do not go back onto the bees till the following spring

 

[drex]

Yes, I use it for that too. I now store supers "dry" . Purely a personal thing, as I do not like the smell from fermented honey left in frames. I know the bees soon clear them up, but illogically I think if I don't like it, neither will the bees. Seems more " hygienic" too.

 

[Levitt53]

Thanks both. That all makes sense. I don't need to inspect the hives at the weekend so I think I'll sort the supers out a bit. The one with three has very little in the third so I'll aim to get that down to two and work from there. There is always so much to think about.