Supers full of pollen

[Rock_Chick]

How do you deal with supers full of pollen, the one directly above the BB is rammed with pollen as is the BB, its not just one hive They all storing pollen like mad,Can you extract the honey around pollen ?

 

[enrico]

Funnily enough I am just about to extract a super that has more pollen than honey. I have never had so much pollen in a single super before. I am hoping the pollen will stay in place while I spin the honey off!
E

 

[Rock_Chick]

Funnily enough I am just about to extract a super that has more pollen than honey. I have never had so much pollen in a single super before. I am hoping the pollen will stay in place while I spin the honey off!
E

What will you do with the frames after ?

 

[pargyle]

What will you do with the frames after ?

Put them back on for the bees to sort out at this time of the year - the pollen will get cleared out as they need it for brood rearing and 'bee bread'.

I've spun frames with pollen in them at times and it tends to stay in place in the frame ... A little pollen in your honey is not going to make a lot of difference although it may start to crystallise a bit quicker than normal as the pollen grains (depending on their size) provide a nucleus for the sugars to crystallise around.

 

[Polyanwood]

If the bees don't clear out the pollen when you put the supers back to clean, it sometimes goes mouldy over Winter, in which case, I scrape them out, sometimes leaving holes in the comb, which the bees repair.

The other thing to think about is WHY they are puttng pollen in the super. Is it because they normally put pollen at the boundary of the brood nest, and the QX means the brood nest is a bit small for that colony?

 

[masterBK]

I keep my bees on double broods so pollen rarely gets stored in the supers. Can use drone comb in the supers as they never store pollen in drone comb but the disadvantages of using drone comb outweigh this IMHO.

 

[Rock_Chick]

I keep my bees on double broods so pollen rarely gets stored in the supers. Can use drone comb in the supers as they never store pollen in drone comb but the disadvantages of using drone comb outweigh this IMHO.

They are on DB the top BB is full of pollen and also 1st super

 

[enrico]

Spun mine off. No problem, will return to the top of a hive tonight for them to clean up.
E

 

[Erichalfbee]

It doesn’t spin off
Pity
Honey with masses of pollen might be quite sellable

 

[beeno]

Well, something that has never happened to my hives in 9 years of beekeeping. Something else to look forward to then.

 

[Hedgerow Honey]

Is there any disadvantage to drone in supers, I must be missing something.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Is there any disadvantage to drone in supers.

apart from it being rather pointless? I suppose it gets interesting if the queen gets up there

 

[masterBK]

Bees reluctant to cap honey in drone cells but main problem is when queen gets above excluder (usually beekeepers fault) resulting in loads of drone brood, rapid increase in Varroa, loads of dead drones stuck in the excluder. Only marginal advantages are that honey spins out of drone cells a little easier and bees use less wax to build each comb.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Is there any disadvantage to drone in supers, I must be missing something.

Yes
Queen.
Drones blocking the excluder or increase in varroa shouldn’t be a problem surely if you’re still checking your bees

 

[MerryBee]

Bees reluctant to cap honey in drone cells but main problem is when queen gets above excluder (usually beekeepers fault) resulting in loads of drone brood, rapid increase in Varroa, loads of dead drones stuck in the excluder. Only marginal advantages are that honey spins out of drone cells a little easier and bees use less wax to build each comb.

Reluctant to cap honey in drone cells? Nonsense. I have a mixture of drone and worker in my supers and I have never seen that.

You definitely get less pollen stored in your supers if its drone. Pollen in the supers can be a problem when extracting as it unbalances your extractor, and it goes mouldy over the winter when supers are off. Thats 2 good reasons to use it.

In the unlikely event that your queen gets up above the QE you will surely find that out quickly if you are doing regular inspections? Then just add an upper entrance above the QE which will allow the drones out.

 

[masterBK]

When I started beekeeping (62 yrs ago) I used drone foundation in my supers and still have several dozen today and every year I notice these are the last to be sealed. So not nonsense but based on personal observations over many decades. Nigel P in many of his forum manifestations (has he like Elvis left the forum) has also commented on the reluctance to cap honey in drone cell in some of his contributions . Most of the time (and with 25+ colonies time is precious) there is no real need to inspect super combs so I don't usually do it. I allow myself 2 to 3 mins per colony.

 

[WoodenBeam]

Agree with negative comments regarding drone foundation in supers. Had a play with some last year on Borage which was fine - a good flow and made some impressive combs.
Combs were then recycled into supers this year. Unless there was a good flow on combs weren’t capped, they were chewed and altered, pulled in all manner of forms, eggs moved above Q‘x for drone production (running commercial brood boxes) - a right hodgepodge and I’ve been grunting & groaning to myself about “bloody drone comb” while extracting this time round.
Going forward, I may use again but only when I think bees can pull them & finish in one hit. Frames will then be separated off & only used for one off’s as opposed to general use. I’ll add I use Manleys in National supers in the main & for balance, no pollen was stored in the drone comb as a small positive.

 

[ericbeaumont]

Reluctant to cap honey in drone cells? Nonsense.

I used to return damaged super combs for repair; bees usually filled the gap with drone comb, presumably to retain the option to produce drones until late in the season to cover the unforeseen. This comb was the last to be filled, reluctantly, and some time after the worker comb surrounding it had been filled and capped, which made for unbalanced management and extraction. If I find any like that it gets melted down; I want continuity.

Polyandwood went to the crux of the pollen issue: why are they putting pollen in the supers? and is the brood nest is a bit small for that colony? The bees are telling you Rockchick, whichever way you look at it, that space is inadequate for the size of colony during an excellent spring and an abundance of pollen.

I find that workers dump pollen as close to the door as they can; house bees play no part in shifting the delivery, and I'm curious to know why pollen is in your top BB, because I find whole slabs of it in bottom boxes and some on the nest periphery.

Double brood is not a fixed solution to colony expansion and queen performance, so consider either triple brood or less prolific queens. The way I use triple is to put into the third box a couple of frames of brood and put the box between the first two when the colony is booming. Tim Rowe doesn't move the two frames but his excellent principle in this Powerpoint presentation (about a third of the way down) explains how he manages expansion.

A colony is like an accordion: it can be played at full stretch or nearly closed, horizontally and vertically; our tricky job is to keep up when a fast tune is played.

 

[Hedgerow Honey]

We have around five hundred supers with drone & about a hundred with worker, never find any noticeable difference.
I do get the odd occasion where the queen gets upstairs, but very rare, ( once in three years).
All hives are run warm way on solid floors, I do get the outer frames filled with pollen but nowhere else, I remove these for nucs and place foundation in the middle of brood nest. This tends to hold them back a bit and frees up laying space.
Still get a little pollen in supers, but as mentioned not such a bad thing.

 

[Swn58]

It happens on one of my apiaries, but not enough to cause much trouble. I've always assumed it was a lack of room in the brood-box that caused it.