Moving supers from strong to weak hive?

[ONG2]

I installed 2 nucs into seperate deep hive bodies the 1st of July. July through September has been far drier than normal here in NCentral Ohio. So the bees have been slow on the draw.The hive bodies are full of bees and the have just now filled out all the combs.

My question is can I transfer full honey supers from the stronger hives and simply place on the new hives as a food source for the winter?

If yes how many would be required?

Do I need to get the bees from the established colony off the supers or just donate them to the new hive?

Thanks for the help.

[alpha6]

If they have drawn out the comb I would suggest feeding them 2:1 or 3:1 and they will fill those combs.

You can just move supers. You can leave the bees in them, just put a news paper between the super and hive and by the time they eat through it will be fine or you can just shake them into their own hive and move the empty supers. Be careful not to take too much from you strong hives. You may want to think about taking every other frame and switching it out with the strong hives. That way you divide up the stores and with drawn comb both will fill those if you feed and it will be less work on both hives.

[Pete0]

"My question is can I transfer full honey supers from the stronger hives and simply place on the new hives as a food source for the winter?"

Yes, as long as you're not taking it all away from the donor colony.

"If yes how many would be required?"

I'm located in Southeastern Virginia and it is the standard practise to leave the bees a medium super of honey for winter stores. With the warmer winters I'm finding that I have to also feed on the warmer days that the bees are flying.

"Do I need to get the bees from the established colony off the supers or just donate them to the new hive?"

If it is a weaker colony I'd shake most of the bees off the comb and make sure I reduced the entrance so as not to cause them to get robbed out.

Good luck,

Pete0
Bena, VA