Wet super

[Blue Spinnaker]

I have a wet super stored from last year, and I was wondering if I just treat this as normal and put it on when the bees require space, or do they need it in advance to give it a spring clean?

At present I have 5 frames of brood, eggs and larvae, 4 with varying amounts of pollen and stores from the winter, and 2 that they have drawn and started to fill with pollen and nectar in the last fortnight.

Thank you - this is my first Spring and it's all go!

 

[burren]

congrats blue spinnaker on reaching your 1st spring- hope it leads to a great honey harvest in the summer!
The wet super if stored correctly can just go on when needed. You will need to have a good many bees more, 8/9 seams FULL before supering up(nat). You mention 2 frames that have been drawn and only just being filled.They are going in the right direction.

 

[Finman]

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I use to spray wet supers with water mist. It is easier to bees clean the combs. However they must carry cleaning water from outside. Very few if any do this, But beeks do very much more stupid things with their bees.

 

[BILL.HEARD]

Always store my supers wet, seem to get less wax moth. In the spring it helps to get bees quickly up into the supers and they have them all cleaned up within a few hours.

 

[Arfermo]

Always store my supers wet, seem to get less wax moth. In the spring it helps to get bees quickly up into the supers and they have them all cleaned up within a few hours.

Aren't extracted supers always wet? Whatever, the bees will love cleaning the frames up, retoring the comb etc and it's not too early to put it on even now as there will then be some honey to feed upon as well.

 

[Hebeegeebee]

It been written to "super early" - I would say that 8 or 9 frames of brood is too late to super. That gives the bees very little room for any stores that come in and they will be feeling congested by then. A field of OSR nearby and a super could be filled VERY quickly. I consider supering at 6 frames of brood - depending on the weather and a best guess on forage. I might wait a week or so after that and then put the super on.

 

[MJBee]

It been written to "super early" - I would say that 8 or 9 frames of brood is too late to super. That gives the bees very little room for any stores that come in and they will be feeling congested by then. A field of OSR nearby and a super could be filled VERY quickly. I consider supering at 6 frames of brood - depending on the weather and a best guess on forage. I might wait a week or so after that and then put the super on.

IF you have OSR or some other big flow. There is no OSR in my area and the spring flow is slow but steady from flowers and fruit until early May when the Acacia starts. I super at 8 frames of brood any earlier risks a check if the weather goes cool - Finmans vain space