To leave a supper on now

[paulnewbee1]

I took all the honey off this weekend question is this

Do I leave a supper on for a couple of weeks until it gets colder or do I just leave them in the deeps and start feeding for winter?

Thanks Paul

[Beeslave]

It all depends on how heavy they are now. If they presently have enough stores for winter add a super. If they don't have enough stores and have a lot of brood in top deep start feeding now so they will back fill the brood as it hatches.

[paulnewbee1]

I have some that need a little more in the deep they ate about three frames have some brood in others, I have 10 hives all at various stages I did put some suppers on that need to be drawing out the weather here in WI is going to be in the 70 all week the best September for about 5 years.

[DRUR]

Italians are bad about having an open brood nest, and in many instances they do not contract the brood area in preparation for winter. They will continue to make bees until they use up all their honey and then starve to death. Therefore, you must force the brood nest to contract to an area no larger than about 3 frames.

If there is not natural flow of nectar to do this then I would advise that you continue feeding until the brood nest is contracted to no more than 3 frames (deep). To do this with 2 deeps and 1 medium, you will end up with about 140# of honey/pollen, which should be more than enough to get you through the winter, but check with local beeks to see how much is needed.

If you only had 2 deeps and no medium, contraction of the brood area to 3 frames would give you about 100# of honey/pollen, which is what I try to shoot for in Texas, but our bees are more active during the warm winter days and may use as much or more as further north. I don't know this. Hope this helps.