Syrup in supers

[busybee53]

Hi all. Would like some advice please. I have carried out AS procedure which left the queen with one frame of brood and the flying bees and supers. Due to the weather I have fed them some of their own honey from last season. There are a lot of bees and they used it all. Bees were filling both supers. Having read that lack of space could lead to swarming and because they built three queen/supersedure cells (even though they have a young queen) I gave them a third super. They have been drawing this out and now have brood on three frames in the brood box. The weather has still been pants and there were no stores whatsoever so I have had to give them syrup. I did not really want to do this as I knew they would store it in the supers. But live bees are better than starved ones so I gave them syrup and now have to work out what to do about the syrup so it does not contaminate any honey they might make in the summer. Is it a good idea to wait till there is a flow and then take off the supers with sugar in? I am concerned this will leave them without stores again but leaving the supers on means they can move the syrup around. Any advice? P.S. Ain't beekeeping complicated? Must be why I like it.

 

[Finman]

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Perhaps I undestand and perhaps not.

You have foundations and drawn supers filled with sugar?

Now, put the foundation box up. Into it all brood frames.
Then super with syrup down.

Bees will consume quite a lot syrup before it comes flow weathers.

What you get then: you get drawn combs.

When the flow begins, join the hive parts, that you get foragers and young bees into balance.

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[busybee53]

Just to be sure, I think what you are saying Finman is to put the supers below the brood box?

I have 3 supers on so to do this I would probably need to reduce the number of supers which would mean the bees would be very crowded. I am also worried about the queen moving down into the supers and laying there.

Is there any other way?

 

[Finman]

Just to be sure, I think what you are saying Finman is to put the supers below the brood box?

I have 3 supers on so to do this I would probably need to reduce the number of supers which would mean the bees would be very crowded. I am also worried about the queen moving down into the supers and laying there.

Is there any other way?

ok, it is a big hive.

one way is that that you extraxt the syrup and store it for later use.
But lots of sugar goes to greasing the exctractor.
.

 

[busybee53]

Thanks for that Finman. Good idea. I am also thinking of not extracting at all from that colony and using the honey/syrup mix later for this and another colony as autumn feed (provided no disease present). So I have options now.

 

[aberreef]

With the crappy weather and the June gap to follow, couldn't you just leave the bees eat what they've stored?

 

[busybee53]

Yes that is also something I'm thinking of. What a rotten season (so far). Fingers crossed for later.

 

[Finman]

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But how many kilos you feeded sugar to the supers?

 

[busybee53]

I fed total of 4 k sugar after an AS because there were a lot of bees and no stores at all. There are less bees today. They swarmed. See my other post.