removing super

[hornett]

May someone can advice me, I have a double brood box and 2 suppers on from over the winter, should i look at taking one off or leave it until the weather is warmer. They have been bring in a lot of pollen the last few days.

Buzz

 

[Rosti]

That feels like quite a big space to have over wintered on, massive central heating bills! You probably need to give more context information for targeted help. Assuming the worst.

This is subject to it being warm enough for a fairly disruptive inspection (so based on Yorkshire weather) you cant do it yet.
Stage 1. Assuming the queen has a full run of the hive I would start by a) find the queen and get her down into the BBs and then b) introducing a QE above the top BB. At the same inspection move to stage 2.
Stage 2. Are there signs of brood / eggs in the supers ???
a) if yes, place them both back on top of the QE and wait for brood to hatch (up to 21 days). Bruise obvious stores and see if you can get them to move them at the same time but unlikely if there is brood, they will use it up though and get insultaion above the supers, that remains a very big space for them to keep warm in March / April with lowest bee numbers (I might think hard about binning a super of brood to give them a smaller space to manage)
b) No brood/eggs? Good, if you have been feeding syrup then you dont have 'proper' honey in your supers so you need the girls to use up those stores. Remove both supers. Place a crown board with a feed hole open. Place the fullest of the supers above the feeding hole having heavily bruised the capped stores before you do.
Stage 3. Monitor and when thay have cleared that down replace with the other, doing the same.

If you are confident you have honey in the supers then spin it out - take it / feed it back but free up the supers for your controlled use not theirs.

 

[Arfermo]

Bit late now - the supers should have been removed in the autumn. If you have used Apiguard in Aug/Sept and oxalic about Xmas, as you really should have done, that will have contaminated any honey which is only of use for the bees to live on. Choice is to leave the supers on and take no honey this year or remove them and use the supers to feed in the autumn, providing the honey is not rock hard by then.

 

[Rosti]

quite right Afermo, contaminated ' stores', I'd missed that, a good response build. R

 

[hornett]

I was adviced too leave a supper on for the bees, I then returned a wet supper for them to clean but they filled it up in a week.
I have also treated them with Apigard and oxalic .

Buzz

 

[Rosti]

Hornett, leaving a super for extra over wintering stores is common practice, but if I have read your post correctly they already had that extra storage capacity because they were on double BB. Thats why I made the comment about the central heating bills - 2xBB and 2xS is a big space. You are where you are and you have a viable colony coming out of winter so you are still in a good place! just get on and reclaim those supers and decide whether you need single BB, double BB or a switch to 14x12 for this colony. R

 

[hornett]

Thanks Rosti for your advice.

Buzz

 

[Midland Beek]

First job of the year hornett: Catch the queen and confine her with a queen excluder to the two brood boxes.

 

[Poly Hive]

Umm... what if there is brood in the supers?

Should the queen then be confined to the double broods?

Can we play what if?

Ok..

You have a stack with floor, two broods and two supers and some where in that lot is (hopefully brood) and a decent colony plus queen.

I suspect that there will be brood in the top as the queen is most likely to have gone up. (Maybe not but the odds say yes)

What I would do if she is up there is to switch the supers to the bottom as in put the supers on the floor, and put one brood box on top. No excluder.

If you have brood in one only of the supers then so much the better.

If you have brood in two, and you can fit all the combs into one super then do it and clear the bees out of the 2nd super. In that instance you will have your super with brood on the floor, then your brood box, then a clearer board of what ever sort you use, then the super with just bees and combs, then a crown board then roof.

You get the idea?

If you happen to find the queen then pop her into a match box for safety then do the re-arranging.

PH

 

[Rosti]

Umm... what if there is brood in the supers?

Ref back to #post 2 option (a), dont waste the brood but get her in the boxes you want her in long term.

 

[richardbees]

Hornett

Did you leave a queen excluder between the brood boxes and the supers?

Richard

 

[Poly Hive]

Missed that Rosti.

PH

 

[Vergilius]

Hornett

Did you leave a queen excluder between the brood boxes and the supers?

Richard

I've got a bad feeling that the answer to this may be yes.

Hornett???

Talk about being OTT; you are essentially overwintering on triple brood!!! Most only winter on one box!!!

Ben P

 

[Poly Hive]

Actually I have a colony in a similar situation.......although in poly.

Why?

Because life intervened. Bit of a bu**er but sh** happens all. So poss a bit less of the crit and a bit more of the sympathy? MIL got very ill, actually died on the op table. Now pretty good thanks to modern medicine.


PH

 

[hornett]

No queen excluder on.
As a new beek and a member of my local beekeeping club, i advised to leave the 2 brood boxes on as the queen was such a good layer, and also to leave 1 super of stores for then, as i said earlier i put a wet super on which they re-filled in a week ,so i left that one on as well.

Buzz

 

[richardbees]

That's a daunting task! Wait for warm day and get an experienced beek to help as you've got to find the Q in that lot and will definitely need support - if not just to have another pair of eyes!
I've never faced this before but at a guess she'll be with a brood area centred in the top brood box and first super. You'l need a couple of spare supers to put the boxes on as you take them off.
My suggestion is to re-assemble the hive with any super containing brood on the floor, then the brood box with brood, then the other bb, then an excluder with the broodless super on top.
imho after a few weeks the bottom super will be brood free and can be removed.

This advice may be rubbish and hopefully someone with more expertise will post .....

Good luck!

richard

edit: put the frame with the Q on somewhere safe (like an empty nuc) while you're re-arranging the boxes and put it back where you found it.

 

[Haughton Honey]

That's a daunting task! Wait for warm day and get an experienced beek to help as you've got to find the Q in that lot and will definitely need support - if not just to have another pair of eyes!
I've never faced this before but at a guess she'll be with a brood area centred in the top brood box and first super. You'l need a couple of spare supers to put the boxes on as you take them off.
My suggestion is to re-assemble the hive with any super containing brood on the floor, then the brood box with brood, then the other bb, then an excluder with the broodless super on top.
imho after a few weeks the bottom super will be brood free and can be removed.

This advice may be rubbish and hopefully someone with more expertise will post .....

Good luck!

richard

Actually Richard, I thought that that was pretty good advice myself........

 

[richardbees]

Thank you WPC, coming from someone with a plethora of double brood box colonies that's a nice endorsement...

 

[oliver90owner]

If you want to find where thwe queen is (without finding her, so as to speak) insert Q/E and wait three days. She will be the side where the eggs are. KISS principle and an effective means particularly while temps are slighty iffy.

RAB

 

[hornett]

Thanks everyone for the advice.

Buzz