Pollen in super

Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum

Help Support Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

skydragon

House Bee
Joined
Jul 21, 2009
Messages
108
Reaction score
0
Location
Pocklington, Yorks, UK
Hive Type
14x12
Number of Hives
4
I put a new super, complete with new frames/foundation on top of a QE on top of my National BB a week or so ago.

The bees seem to have been very busy and about half the frames are nearly fully drawn out.

Some of the frames are starting to fill with honey, but I was suprised to see a fair quantity of pollen also been stored in the super. Is this normal? Will the beesremove the pollen in weeks to come, when they realise there are no eggs/brood being laid in the super?
 
Yes it is common as it is part of the pollen arch over the brood.

PH
 
I've just taken off 2 supers which were directly above the broodnest as the top one was capped. When I got the supers back to the house I saw that the bottom super had a nice arch of pollen over 6 frames which almost reached the top of the frame :svengo:

Should I
1) put it back?
2) try to extract the stores from around the pollen?
3) something else?
 
Just extract them as normal,keeping them even in the extractor,may get a big wobble else,keep those combs for putting back on in the first super in spring when pollen is needed most, and not always available..
 
Pollen in supers means that the bees are organising their hive as they want.

Nothing to do with hive size or other fancy beekeeper opinions.

It suits that colony.

PH
 
Andy Whatten suggests not keeping supers that have had pollen in over the winter as the wax moth has something to eat then. Reclaim the wax and get fresh foundation was his tip.

Baggy
 
FWIW - I extracted this super last weekend and it still had a bit of pollen left in it, ehere and there. However, all the pollen came out during the extraction process and added to the Honey's flavour.

The super was then put back on the hive for cleaning up and (hopefully) refilling.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top