Will bees take honey down from honey super.

[phauenst]

Hi
On August 8th I checked my honey supers and found that I had 6-7 frames of 9 on each hive, full and capped, also noticed that the upper deeps were empty of any honey!
This weekend (Sept.6th.) I went to harvest the honey I had only to find that not only were the capped frames partialy un-capped, but it appears that the bees are removing the honey.
Is this common? What should I do?
My hives are healthy and very strong acording to the county bee inspector.
Pete

[bradkeskey]

I was told and read that they will pull down honey from supers and fill in where brood was at this time of the year. Labor Day weekend is a normal harvest weekend or at least for Northern Climates like me in Michigan. I am holding off with this last goldenrod flow hoping to get a third super out of my first year hive this year. I had one super on, it filled up, put a second on, and that was about 80% so I put a third on. When I went to pull the first full one off just last week, it had been uncapped and some of the outer frames that were previously full, were not anymore. So I had a similar problem you did. Depending on your climate I think I'd pull off what was ready to go and get it ready to harvest, leaving behind a bunch for them in the deeps.

Brad

[waynesgarden]

The critters are doing the same thing here. I had counted my chickens before they hatched and looked forward to a full medium super of honey from this first-year hive. The bees had other ideas, Yesterday was the day to pull the honey and do a full hive check. The lower brood box was very light so who can begrudge them?

They had opened cappings and removed honey on four frames of the 10 so I left those for them along with six frames that were partially filled and uncapped from the top medium. I'll check them later in the week and expect to see a lot of it moved down below. I want to leave three full mediums going into winter so maybe I'll have to give back some of the six frames I took. (Haven't extracted yet.)

I'll be happy with a frame or two of honey this year.

Wayne

[Cactii]

Pretty cool that they would bring honey down into the brood chamber. Sounds like they are creating "thermal mass" for the winter.

These are smart little creatures hey.

[DRUR]

There is an ebb and flow of bee populations. During a good flow surplus is stored, as the flow wains some bees respond by reducing brood production; although often Italians have a tendency to maintain populations as long as they have food. Then, in preparation for winter populations, this time of year, the colony will resume brood production, and if there is not a fall flow, they will of course use up stored honey. Proper management requires that sufficient winter stores for your area be available.

If your colonies are short and there is no fall flow coming you should feed to provided adequate winter stores, or return the unharvested honey. Often Italians, require more intense management techniques as they will sometimes use all stores for brood production causing a later starvation, due to lack of stores and unnecessarily large bee populations. You might, then want to feed until most of the brood area is back filled with honey/syrup until only about 3 frames are available for the winter cluster.

[Ardilla]

This is common in my area. If there is honey to be had, I take it. They can move a full super quickly.

[Dave W]

Often, "we" hear the words "fall flow" and think that means "surplus". In some areas, in some years, for some "properly managed" colonies, that can be true.

More often than not, a "fall flow" should be considered "stores for winter".

(Take "your surplus" in July, so bees can have and do for the rest of year what they want.)

[rjphil]

Slightly off topic, but - I have two hives that were started this April from packages. One was requeened on May 30th. That hive doesn't have too much honey stored in either the upper deep or the mediums I put on. The other hive has 2 shallow supers and one medium super basically full of honey. I was going to leave them on being it is the first year for the hives. Question is, could I use a bee escape board to get them out of one of the shallow supers and transfer it to the hive that doesn't have much honey? Both hives have a lot of bees, and seem to be very healthy. I did have a problem with yellow jackets robbing, but put in the entrance reducers and that seemed to do the trick.

[Dave W]

>transfer it to the hive that doesn't have much honey . . .
Sure, thats a good idea! :)

(Just lift it off, and move it. Bee escape not required)

[rjphil]

Thanks Dave! (Phauenst - I don't mean to hijack your thread, it addressed some of my concerns as well).
If I just move the super over without emptying it of bees, should I do a newspaper combine with a single sheet? I don't want to start a war in there :D

[BaconStreetBees]

rjphil,

No need to use newspaper. Just shake them off or use a bee brush. Then transfer to the other hive.

[DRUR]

More often than not, a "fall flow" should be considered "stores for winter". (Take "your surplus" in July, so bees can have and do for the rest of year what they want.)

Dave thanks for the clarification. In my area our better honey is produced April through about the middle of June, but mostly through the end of May. After that the honey is darker and stronger tasting. Usually less desirable to people (but not always).

Seems like here (on this site), most leave the supers on, just adding supers, until a specified time and harvest all at once. I never did this. Once most of my colonies had a super of honey capped, and started on the second, I would pull and harvest the one super from all my colonies; and then return the supers to be cleaned up. I would just then repeat the process after they fill the second super and start on the third and fourth if lucky. Once the flow starts waining the end of May, I would not replace the empty super and just let them finish the last one. This way I have less empty supers to have to store, usually only two per colony. After the last one is capped towards the end of June, I would just leave it in case they need it and for room to spread out.

Once the late summer, or fall flow starts, I would pull the last super and harvest it and let them back fill the brood boxes leaving about 100+# (of honey/pollen/beebread) in the two deep (or now three medium) boxes. Trying to leave them a limited amount of open comb to keep enough brood rearing. Since we have such warm weather off and on during the winter, this prevents them from exploding to early.