Should I super my Queenless hive?

[Skyhook]

My current status is- queen dead, colony split between 2 hives, virgins being raised in both. Each has enough bees to make a respectable colony. I am feeding both as I have been advised to- but the hive that started with the flying bees is actually bringing nectar in, with OSR about 1/4 mile away. It occurs to me that this is a similar situation to that sometimes created to produce sections.

Is there any reason why, rather than feeding, I shouldn't super this colony and try to get some honey off them? After all, they haven't got much else to do with it until there is some brood, which is likely to be at least a fortnight.

 

[Poly Hive]

I would suggest stopping feeing, and supering.

Being in possession of a virgin they should want to keep ticking over and there is a small chance that they will take to the super. Certainly worth a go.

PH

 

[mandabow]

IMO it's 6 of one half a dozen of the other..


For - As PH says they will want to tick over and build up stores for oncomming queen. you may get some honey out of it. you're also less likely to get a cast swarm with the first queen out (unless you've stripped back to only one cell in each) the increase in honey in the brood box will improve the nutrition of her first children. if they are collecting syrup and honey and fill the broodbox HRH won't have as much space to lay once she's mated..

Against - giving more space to fill and taking away syrup will encourage more bees to travel 1/4 of a mile to OSR.. right now you have a finite number of bees, with a finite distance of flight before their wings are fubar'd. increasing the number of bees traveling and the distance travelled also increases the likelyhood of being killed enroute, weather changing and getting rained on, birds etc all decrease the population more the longer the distance flown. wheras a short hop outside then back in to fan the syrup until it evaporates enough to cap is a lot less risky to your numbers, which are needed to maintain temp and sucessfully bring up the first new brood.. encouraging them to fly longer distances is in a way encouraging them to grow old.. they then have to regress back to nurse bees in order to preform duties once HRH is in swing. keeping the food close allows immature bees more time to stay immature without feeling the hive is loosing out on flow.

NB i have no idea what you should do, just my take on it, depends how important the honey is to you. if it were me i'd consider supering and not removing food, then either bruising them once the queen is in full lay to encourage them to be used up before supering once numbers are up, or saving them for winter as a better than just syrup feed. i'm sure things could go well or indeedy badly either way.

 

[RoseCottage]

We found ourselves in a similar position last year around the same time. For us our girls went into overdrive and we took 5 supers of honey from them. When we analysed the details it was clear that being queenless for that short period actually was the trigger for massive honey collection. I wouldn't feed at he moment.
Go for it...

Sam

 

[Vergilius]

Sky,

What happened to this?!?

http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=6511&highlight=grand+plan

Never mind. You win some, you lose some. You may have mucked it up a bit now but you can learn from it, and move on.

Anyway, we still have the whole of summer in front of us and, as you said, there is still plenty of time for your colony/colonies to build up ready for splitting and honey producing...

Ben P

 

[Chris B]

I think it highly unlikely a queenless split will need a super. Hatching brood provides space for nectar and presumably you also have 5 or 6 empty brood frames in each half? But I can't see any harm in supering - nothing ventured nothing gained.

 

[Skyhook]

Sky,

What happened to this?!?

http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=6511&highlight=grand+plan

Ben P

What happened was this http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=9714

And the plan so nearly looked like working...