- Joined
- May 2, 2018
- Messages
- 677
- Reaction score
- 681
- Location
- Nr Maidstone, Kent, UK
- Hive Type
- National
- Number of Hives
- 4
I'm after a little bit of reassurance as to how to manage the space in one of my colonies after extraction.
The background: I got them as an overwintered nuc in April last year (with a 2018 queen). Last year they quickly got up to double-brood (they're Buckfasts), and I kept them on double brood over winter, and intend to keep them that way. At the beginning of May I did an artificial swarm, so that this queen and the flying bees started with a brood box of foundation, and the two supers they had been filling on the original hive. They have since drawn out and are using 10 frames in the brood box and are filling (with bees & nectar), 4 supers.
I recently cleared and extracted 2 of the supers (I've now had 30Kg of honey off of this hive so far). As I was short on more supers, I put an eke and a brood box of foundation on under the clearer board just to give the bees space whilst the 2 supers were off. I had intended to put the 2 extracted supers straight back on again and take the brood box back off for now, with plans to give it to them next month to start drawing out and filling in the autumn so that they have a nice full double brood box of stores for overwintering.
However, in the three days the supers were off they've already drawn 5 of the frames in the second brood box, the queen has laid up three of the frames and the other two are filling with nectar.
So, finally getting to my query... I will obviously be leaving them with the second brood box now that they've started using it, but would putting all of the supers back on as well be giving them too much space?
I'm conscious I shouldn't give them too much space to heat. I know it's usual to put extracted supers straight back on again at this time of year, but is this too much with a new only half filled second brood box too?
The background: I got them as an overwintered nuc in April last year (with a 2018 queen). Last year they quickly got up to double-brood (they're Buckfasts), and I kept them on double brood over winter, and intend to keep them that way. At the beginning of May I did an artificial swarm, so that this queen and the flying bees started with a brood box of foundation, and the two supers they had been filling on the original hive. They have since drawn out and are using 10 frames in the brood box and are filling (with bees & nectar), 4 supers.
I recently cleared and extracted 2 of the supers (I've now had 30Kg of honey off of this hive so far). As I was short on more supers, I put an eke and a brood box of foundation on under the clearer board just to give the bees space whilst the 2 supers were off. I had intended to put the 2 extracted supers straight back on again and take the brood box back off for now, with plans to give it to them next month to start drawing out and filling in the autumn so that they have a nice full double brood box of stores for overwintering.
However, in the three days the supers were off they've already drawn 5 of the frames in the second brood box, the queen has laid up three of the frames and the other two are filling with nectar.
So, finally getting to my query... I will obviously be leaving them with the second brood box now that they've started using it, but would putting all of the supers back on as well be giving them too much space?
I'm conscious I shouldn't give them too much space to heat. I know it's usual to put extracted supers straight back on again at this time of year, but is this too much with a new only half filled second brood box too?
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