Pull the honey, or not?

[MisterSteve124]

Well after our first year hive not making it through the winter last year I want to make sure that this one does. We bought two packages this spring and one was struggling and left with no queen so we ended up combining the hives. It seems to be going very strong. We put on two medium honey supers ontop of the two hive bodies. The lower medium super is about 75% full of honey and the top one is about 15%. I would like to get some honey but I want to make sure that they hive makes it through the winter. My question is do you think I should leave 1 or 2 of the honey supers on over the winter, for extra food for the bees. Or should they be fine with the 2 hive bodies? I plan on feeding dry sugar if needed this year. Thanks

[Barry Digman]

I would suggest that you leave it. You're just beginning, and you and the bees will need every advantage you can get in order to get through the winter. I think honey is much better than other foods for overwintering. Your local beekeepers can tell you what is considered the minimum required for wintering over, but I would guess that two deeps and one full super isn't going to be overdoing it. You may get a fall flow that will finish off that second super too, and in that case I'll bet you'll be able to harvest some.

[carbide]

Even though I live on the other side of the state from you this may help.
I keep my bees in two deep hive bodies and use shallow supers for honey. Anything that my bees put into the supers is honey for me. I don't worry about the winter stores for the bees until the beginning of September when the goldenrod begins to bloom.

When the goldenrod begins to bloom here I keep a close eye on the bees to see it they are bringing in the flow or if we are having a "dry bloom". If the bees are gathering the nectar from the goldenrod and filling up the hive bodies I don't worry about them having enough honey to make it through the winter. With two hive bodies full of honey the bees have sufficient stores to see them through.

If we are having a "dry bloom" year (a lot of flowers but no nectar) then I feed the bees syrup for them to store.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that since you are on the other side of the state where your winters aren't nearly as bad as ours, I wouldn't think that your bees would require as much honey as mine do to make it through the winter.

[MisterSteve124]

Ok thanks for the advice guys, I'll keep an eye on the nectar flow. I might just keep the one super on there, I really don't want them to die over the winter so better safe than sorry. I'll see if they fill the top one and take that for honey if they do. Thanks