Unfinished Supers

[Hillbilly Tilley]

I have two hives with one unfinished super on each of them. They are about 3/4 drawn and have lots of wet cells in them. The weather is turning colder and I need to take the supers off the hive. My questions are what do I do with them once I get them off? Can I let the bees clean the cells, after they are off? Also, what is the best way to store them until next spring?

Thanks for the help
Hillbilly

[beemandan]

Is there any reason you can't leave them on the hives? If you were talking about several empty supers per hive that'd be one thing. A single, partially filled super per hive may not be a problem and, indeed, may supply some extra overwintering food.

[riverrat]

Move the super above the inner cover the bees should clean it up. scratch open any capped cells. to store I freeze my frames for 24 hours then store in a cool dry place

[Ravenseye]

I would put it above the inner cover as well and let them take it and store it below. I spray my comb with BT or equivalent and then store them in my nice, cold barn.

[Hillbilly Tilley]

Is there any reason you can't leave them on the hives? If you were talking about several empty supers per hive that'd be one thing. A single, partially filled super per hive may not be a problem and, indeed, may supply some extra overwintering food.
I was afraid that the extra room would be too much to keep warm. Another thing is the hive top feeder, the bees would have to crawl over a super to feed. I am not sure this would be a problem...just adding to my confusion.

Hillbilly

[Hillbilly Tilley]

I would put it above the inner cover as well and let them take it and store it below. I spray my comb with BT or equivalent and then store them in my nice, cold barn.
Sorry for my ignorance but what is BT??:scratch:

[Ravenseye]

BT is one of the organic solutions to keep wax moths and other critters in check. See the "For Sale" section at this forum and you'll find it. Once I spray the combs down, if wax moths lay eggs, the larvae don't survive long after they are born. Freezing kills them but I always worry about when the cold weather hits...how long the comb stays in the barn, etc.

[Carl F]

Hillbilly Tilley:

Read my recent post titled "Bees not cooperating" at this link http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=222820 I had the exact situation that you find yourself in and followed some of the exact advice you are being given. There is every chance that the advice will work just as described for you but in my case it did not. The bees continued to fill the cells with sugar syrup when I was feeding. When I took the feeder off and put in the inner cover they continued to fill and cap cells with our fall flow. As of now I am planning to leave the super for the bees. I know there are plenty of bees and I think there is plenty of food for winter--it's just not where the book says it should be. As several have told me before, the bees don't read the books.

[Troy]

Carl F said that these techniques didn't work, but also said: The bees continued to fill the cells with sugar syrup .....

I assumed that the partial super WAS the food and that you'd not be feeding syrup while trying to get them to bring the honey down. Am I correct? If so, the bees would see that honey up above as being food they should bring home. Also, I assume this works better in the fall when we have warm days and cool nights. The bees will perceive that super as being outside the hive then and remove the honey to bring it inside their brood nest.

Also, several have suggested leaving the partial super for winter feed, but I would not want to do that because I'd have to remove my queen excluder then there is a chance the queen will lay in my honey supers in the spring. I try real hard not to allow that. I want my honey supers to be only clean white comb - no brood in them.

[Carl F]

Troy:

I learned plenty in my first year. I think I tried to hard to incorporate as much of the advice I was getting as possible instead of picking a single course of action. In error, I took some of what I got from the forum and some of what I was hearing locally (feed syrup) and did both before I realized that they were working against each other. When I realized that I took the feeder off but by then we were into a bit of a fall flow so they were still filling the super...

I guess I should have included the comment that it did not work for me because the beekeeper over-thought the whole thing. That is why the title of my post was "bees not cooperating". I think we all know that they know the program quite well and we humans must learn--sometimes by our errors.

Thanks for all of your help on the in the forum!

[Troy]

Yeah, Carl, I have learned a lot in just 3 seasons too.

I suppose overall there are very few hard and fast rules, but one of them (at least for me) is to never feed with a super on, because they will just fill it with a mixture of sugar syrup and honey.

I've learned a few more hard and fast rules too.

Don't allow bees to rob sticky frames during a dearth when the bees are 20 feet from the neighbors fence line. It created a huge robbing frenzy and he'll probably never forgive me the sting in the face that caused him to miss a day of work. That is another of my hard and fast rules from now on.

There are a couple others, but they are specific to my climate.

[tecumseh]

hillbilly tilley writes:
Can I let the bees clean the cells, after they are off?

tecumseh: if the super in question had a minimum quantity of feed I would simple set it off and allow whatever bees might be in the area to clean it up.

on the hive you can speed food removal somewhat by uncapping (as with a crapping scraper or fork).

if the hive in question was no higher than three levels deep then I would likely not worry to much about it and leave it on. the bees don't really heat the entire internal dimensions of a hive anyway.

then troy comments:
because I'd have to remove my queen excluder then there is a chance the queen will lay in my honey supers in the spring.

tecumseh: failure to remove a queen excluder before winter in my mind is a large mistake... even in orlando florida.

[odfrank]

tecumseh: failure to remove a queen excluder before winter in my mind is a large mistake... even in orlando florida.

I always purposely leave a QC and empty super on some of my hives for winter. The eucalyptus flow starts in October. In the good old days some would fill a super between October and February. Now a days half die off, and not from leaving the QC on.

[Ravenseye]

My excluders come off with my last harvest, even if I put some supers back on the see what they're bringing in or to maybe get them to pull some comb. Yes, there is a chance that in late winter or early spring the queen might lay there. I've had it happen but leaving the excluder on, in my opinion, is not worth the risk.

[Troy]

tecumseh, I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say.

Yes, I agree - I never leave a super NOR the QE on during the winter months.

I usually have to do some feeding in the winter, and I don't want brood nor syrup in my honey supers, so they have to come off.

AND BE CLEANED, and that is what we were talking about at the start of this thread is cleaning them out.

Maybe you thought I was suggesting leaving the honey super and the QE in place, when I actually meant to suggest removing BOTH.

Also, due to the very mild winters here. I overwinter in just one deep and nothing else. I can monitor and feed more easily and bees never have more than a few days in a row where it is too cold to fly, so I don't need any additional supers for winter feed. Again, we see this all the time..... the techniques need to be adjusted for climate.