Over crowded hive - what to do?

[bobba]

One of my hives, a swarm from early May has a Brood + 1/2, QE and 2 supers. (Open mesh floor)

Both supers look to be 80-90% full.

Over the past few days they have started bearding a little. But today the bearding has stepped up a notch.

The plan was to let them finish filing the supers, perhaps another week or 2, then take the supers off and start pre winter feeding and prep.

If it was earlier in the year I would just pop another super on. But worry its too late in the year to add a super of fresh foundation.

I am also concerned there will not be enough room for the bees if I remove the 2 supers.

When taking supers off another hive earlier in the year, initial I could not get clearer boards to work. The only way I could by get a clearer board to work, was by placing an empty super (foundation or drawn) below the one I was clearing.

So I never "removed" any supers from hives, but actually swapped full ones for empty ones.

Any advice regarding my over crowded hive or removing supers at the end of the season would be appreciated.

 

[pargyle]

One of my hives, a swarm from early May has a Brood + 1/2, QE and 2 supers. (Open mesh floor)

Both supers look to be 80-90% full.

Over the past few days they have started bearding a little. But today the bearding has stepped up a notch.

The plan was to let them finish filing the supers, perhaps another week or 2, then take the supers off and start pre winter feeding and prep.

If it was earlier in the year I would just pop another super on. But worry its too late in the year to add a super of fresh foundation.

I am also concerned there will not be enough room for the bees if I remove the 2 supers.

When taking supers off another hive earlier in the year, initial I could not get clearer boards to work. The only way I could by get a clearer board to work, was by placing an empty super (foundation or drawn) below the one I was clearing.

So I never "removed" any supers from hives, but actually swapped full ones for empty ones.

Any advice regarding my over crowded hive or removing supers at the end of the season would be appreciated.

32 degrees here today and still in the mid twenties in my apiary .. all my hives have the bees covering the landing board and the lower half of the front of the hive. I would not read too much into that. I'm on 14 x 12 with2 or 3 supers on top so you should be OK with what you have in place at present. Once you take them off if you feel that they are overcrowded (you should be able to tell by the number of seams of bees) if you are worried you could always nadir an extracted super under the brood box for a week or two until the start trading down for winter. I'd have a look at how many frames of capped brood they have at present as that will give you an indication of how many bees there will be in a couple of weeks in the hive and you can take that into consideration.

 

[bobba]

Thanks pargyle,

None of my other 3 hives have had any bearding, that's why I was concerned about overcrowding.

But it has been toasty warm here too so hopefully you are right and I am worrying about nothing.

I had a peep in the brood box today but did not lift any frames.

Do you think it will be OK to take the supers as soon as they are full? Or is there still a chance they could swarm if I take them too soon.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Thanks pargyle,

None of my other 3 hives have had any bearding, that's why I was concerned about overcrowding.

But it has been toasty warm here too so hopefully you are right and I am worrying about nothing.

I had a peep in the brood box today but did not lift any frames.

Do you think it will be OK to take the supers as soon as they are full? Or is there still a chance they could swarm if I take them too soon.

You can always take one spin it off and put it back while clearing the other.

 

[pargyle]

There's always a chance that bees will swarm .. some colonies seem to have an inbuilt desire to commit colony suicide but ... by August, most colonies will have lost the urge and you should be more relaxed. You can take a super off spin it and put it back if you think they need the space (just noticed - that's what dani said) ... it's a way to be sure .. as I said, you can always nadir it later on to keep them in the brood box for winter but still have space. I know quite a few beekeepers with standard nationals that do this. I'm on 14 x 12 and I rarely find they really need the extra space.

 

[bobba]

Thanks for the additional suggestion.

I am going to keep a close eye on them and swag the honey as soon as both are full, or before if the flow drys up.

I run brood + 1/2 and nadir the 1/2 in the winter, then put it back on top in the spring. I suppose if I put the super right on the bottom then any syrup they may store there when I feed this autumn should hopefully be gone by next spring.

So long as I can clear one super, after spinning, I can swap, then nadir to get the other off.

I think I will use 2 clearer boards at once. Hopefully both will clear but if only the top one clears you have given me a back up plan.

I feel a lot more confident now, so big thanks.

 

[bobba]

Just a quick update.

The bearding stopped as soon as the sun went and the rain came.

I put a clearer board on Hive 3, left it for 2 days, and it worked a charm. Got me 2 gorgeous supers, every frame bar 1 capped corner to corner. One super had dark/golden honey, the other had honey that is very dark. I cannot wait to see it in the jar so I can compare the color to my spring honey. You can probably tell, I am very happy

I have put a clearer board below 3 of the supers on hive 1. The 4th super is below a QE, so I thought I would get the 3 above the QE out the way 1st.

Its all gone text book so far, witch is very fortunate considering my experience/knowledge is also mostly textbook.

So as per usual I was worrying about nothing. (so far at least)

But thanks again for taking the time to to reassure me and provide suggestions.

 

[Spadger]

Exactly what has been troubling me recently.
If you remove supers from an already full hive, where do the bees fit?
Still can’t quite resolve the space issue in my head.

 

[E&MBees]

Exactly what has been troubling me recently.
If you remove supers from an already full hive, where do the bees fit?
Still can’t quite resolve the space issue in my head.

I have been advised to add an eke below the clearer board to give them extra space, which is what I have done.

 

[Spadger]

Yes, done that, but surely that can only be a temporary measure or they will build comb in it!
An added concern is that I want to treat with Apivar ... which requires super removal for at least 6 weeks. If I left the eke in place for that length of time I am sure they will have moved in for good by the end of that time!

 

[user 819]

If they need room then they need room either double brood or give an empty super and treat. Make sure the super is used only as stores/food for the bees.
It's not to late for a swarm if you don't give them room.

 

[E&MBees]

Yes, done that, but surely that can only be a temporary measure or they will build comb in it!
An added concern is that I want to treat with Apivar ... which requires super removal for at least 6 weeks. If I left the eke in place for that length of time I am sure they will have moved in for good by the end of that time!

I forgot to mention that mine are on a brood and a half, so have a little extra space already.

 

[Erichalfbee]

One of my hives, a swarm from early May has a Brood + 1/2, QE and 2 supers. (Open mesh floor)

Both supers look to be 80-90% full.

Over the past few days they have started bearding a little. But today the bearding has stepped up a notch.

The plan was to let them finish filing the supers, perhaps another week or 2, then take the supers off and start pre winter feeding and prep.

If it was earlier in the year I would just pop another super on. But worry its too late in the year to add a super of fresh foundation.

I am also concerned there will not be enough room for the bees if I remove the 2 supers.

When taking supers off another hive earlier in the year, initial I could not get clearer boards to work. The only way I could by get a clearer board to work, was by placing an empty super (foundation or drawn) below the one I was clearing.

So I never "removed" any supers from hives, but actually swapped full ones for empty ones.

Any advice regarding my over crowded hive or removing supers at the end of the season would be appreciated.

How many bees are actually in the supers when you look in

 

[Murox]

And what is happening in the brood box and the half box?

 

[bobba]

Another update.

"How many bees are actually in the supers when you look in" - Dani, if you mean in the spring Before there were a lot. When they would not clear I could see there were alot of bees still in the super. So I thought I would try bump the bees out of the super, when I lifted the super there was a big ball of bees on the clearer board trying to go down and loads on every frame. When I lifted the clearer board (with eak) it was solid bees beneath, they were pouring onto the ground, you could not see the QE. So I grabbed another super, put that below the clearer board and it worked much better. Looking back I should probably have had the additional super on sooner. This was by far my strongest hive, it had double the bees of my next best hive. If you mean now, there were a lot, but not not crazy 2 deep like in the spring.

Murox - the 1/2 box has some brood in the middle frames and a bit of honey at each end. The main brood box was very light on stores with not much brood. But all boxes have a lot of bees.

Anyway, I tried to remove the last super below the queen excluder. But there was still brood on 5 of the frames. I took 3 capped frames leaving one each side of the brood for the bees. After removing the 3 supers there are a lot of bees in the remaining boxes. So I decided to put the last super on the bottom and will over winter with a brood and 1/2 +super.

The other hive seemed to squeeze down to a brood and a half ok.

Spadger, regarding the space issue, I think the bees gradually stay closer together as the weather gets cooler, so although they are not actually full on clustering, they seem to start bunching up more. The queen will also reduce laying so the population will begin to decrease.

I too was struggling to get my head around the space issue, especially after my experience removing supers in the spring.

I have 2 hives that read the text book. But I have another hive that never properly got going after it swarmed, now the others are winding down this one has frame after frame of capped brood ready for a population explosion. So there is still a lot I am struggling to get my head around.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Another update.

"How many bees are actually in the supers when you look in" - Dani, if you mean in the spring Before there were a lot.

I have 2 hives that read the text book. But I have another hive that never properly got going after it swarmed, now the others are winding down this one has frame after frame of capped brood ready for a population explosion. So there is still a lot I am struggling to get my head around.

I actually meant how many bees are in the supers now?
But I don't think it matters.
It's obvious you've got boxes stuffed with brood. So they need lots of food and space.
I have the same. The black bees are prepping for winter the orange bees still think it's spring. In a good year my orange bees far outperform the black ones but how many good years do we get?
They did give me lots of dandelion honey while the black bees were still building up but I got more summer honey from the black ones

 

[enrico]

To add room at this time of the year you need to add space BELOW the brood box. If they need it they will use it, if they don't it will lie empty, doing no harm and you can remove it later in the autumn or even next spring

 

[The Poot in Somerset]

To add room at this time of the year you need to add space BELOW the brood box. If they need it they will use it, if they don't it will lie empty, doing no harm and you can remove it later in the autumn or even next spring

Good advice, the removal of the nadired super in Spring can be replaced later with a second brood box. That allows a great deal more flexibility within the hive and between hives through the Summer.
Brood and a half becomes very restrictive and inflexible - as I have learned this year.

 

[E&MBees]

Good advice, the removal of the nadired super in Spring can be replaced later with a second brood box. That allows a great deal more flexibility within the hive and between hives through the Summer.
Brood and a half becomes very restrictive and inflexible - as I have learned this year.

Likewise. I’m not going to do brood and a half next year, it’s been an extra challenge that I didn’t need. I didn’t have any thing else to offer when they needed the space, but I now have spare brood boxes for next year.

 

[StephenT]

I don’t think brood and a half is that bad (puts tin helmet on). I used it on my first hive last year and have been following the Wally Shaw method of manipulations and it's working fine. Don’t plan to use it next year though on my two new hives, one of which currently has a nadired super and the other which is fine on a single brood box. Will use double brood on those if need be.