Forgive me if this has been asked before..... I am in my second year of beekeeping, and this year, we had our first crop of honey! A couple of weeks ago, I extracted 2 supers, and returned both supers back to the hive that they came from with the intention of letting the bees clean them. My plan was to then remove one and leave the other with the bees for winter stores. However not realising that it should only have been on for a couple of days, i made a rookie mistake on the timings, and a week later returned to find that the bees were busily filling them both up again. I have heard that it's not wise to leave two supers on over the winter. I'm sure I'm not the only one to have done this, and I'd really appreciate some advice please on what the best thing to do is.
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- Thread starter KatieK
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I’d happily winter on a single box, have you done any treatments. If so I’d condense full frames to a single box and take another box as a crop when full. What do you suspect they are foraging on.
Thank you for the advice it's really helpful. I actually haven't treated as my varroa count was 2 on both of my hives, and I've checked it twice now over the past few weeks. Not sure exactly what they've found as the ivy is only just coming out here, but they seem mighty happy with it that's for sure!
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you will have more - maybe I'm wrong in assuming you are naiively depending on a drop count on your inspection tray to assess your varroa load?
enrico
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I would leave one box on top and put the other underneath the brood box. They will move the nectar from the bottom box up into the too one.
I’d seriously consider treating drop counts are notoriously inaccurate. Put simply they have varroa and without treatment you’ll have a lot more by the time brood rearing finishes, your winter bees or a proportion will be compromised.
I was in two minds about treating as I know that there is likely to be more lurking in the capped brood, but I checked on Beebase and is suggested not to treat based on count that I did. Having said that now that I have seen your comments, I think I will change my mind on this, so thank you.
If I was to do that would the bottom box cause me a problem with vaping with oxalic acid during a brood free time? I have been wondering about this and the best position for a super over winter....
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and the beebase calculator is even more unreliable so wiser to ignore it.
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Hi Katie
Please do re think. The Beebase calculator is inaccurate
The only proper way to check your colony mite load is to do an alcohol wash or a sugar roll.
I treat anyway. The mites are always there
You can think of not treating once you have a few years under your belt. It’s possible but needs work.
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no it wouldn't - or any other time, if you have the gear I would use it now - three times, five days apart
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and I would go with |Ian's suggestion of condensing it down to one box rather than having two shallows on in winter.
