What to do with an unkown super?

[EdNewman]

I inherited a hive from a retiring beek back in February. The hive is on a 14 x 12 brood box and after my first inspection last weekend seems to be doing really well, about three good frames of brood, eggs, larve, plenty of stores and pollen. However the hive overwintered with a super that is still half full of stores. Because I have no idea what was done to the hive, treatment wise, I feel I need to get rid of the stores in the super and start afresh to make sure I have no tainted honey.

What's the best way of going about this, I was thinking of bruising the comb and letting the bees clean it up. But should I put the super under the brood box with the queen excluder between the super and brood box and then taking it away when cleaned out, or leave it on top of brood box?

Looking forward to the correct solution!

Ed.

 

[nelletap]

I'm very new and just passing on what my mentor has said to me. He said there is no need for a queen excluder if the super is beneath the brood box because the queen will lay in the upper area. Certainly if you move it now when laying may have already started, you might have problems in being sure where your queen is - she might end up trapped in the super because the QE would stop her moving upwards.
My mentor had given me a super with drawn out comb because he thought my colony needed it to see them through winter and then when he remembered a few weeks ago, he was keen to get me to move it down before the queen started laying. he thought we might even be too late then so I wonder if you have been able to see whether the queen has laid in the super? If it was half full of stores it suggests it was half empty and the queen could have been tempted to lay eggs in the empty cells.
But I know you'll get much more knowledgeable contributions than mine.
tricia

 

[EdNewman]

Thanks for that, I put the excluder between the brood box and the super (super on top) during the inspection, if there are no eggs in the super then I know where the queen is! So I guess, bruise the super and put it below the brood box with no exluder.