Time to super in east texas?

**Kingfisher Apiaries** · 04-01-2011, 08:50 PM

According to our club newsletter...it is "past time to super" . Is this the case? My supers are still in storage.

mike

**knoxjk** · 04-01-2011, 09:12 PM

Boy, Mike it's hard to say!!! I've got a hive i've been feeding and they are barely keeping up. It's just so dry hardly any forage, may want to pick up the back of the hive and check the weight.

**lupester** · 04-02-2011, 04:46 AM

I guess this is the time its good to be in the suburbs. People still watering their flowers and trees. No huge flow to speak of.

**Growing Boy** · 04-02-2011, 05:19 AM

Just my take on this situation.I threw on a medium super 3 weeks ago. I also took 5 frames of capped honey left over through the winter (from a full medium packed with honey) and replaced them with frames of drawn comb. Those frames are now full with pollen and honey. The super is just now being drawnout. Being the survivalists they are, the girls are just replenishing their stores. With the weather as it is it looks like a dismal year (even here in the 'suburbs'.) I'm going to give it another week or so and see how it goes. Sugars going for $.50 a pound at Fred's (for you locals) I'm stocking up. At the very worst I'll get a bunch of frames of drawn comb and surviving bees. I figure on feeding for quite a while.

**soupcan** · 04-02-2011, 06:28 AM

I don't quite understand as to why you need your beekeeping news letter to tell you it is time to super your bees???

**Kingfisher Apiaries** · 04-02-2011, 08:05 AM

Originally Posted by soupcan

I don't quite understand as to why you need your beekeeping news letter to tell you it is time to super your bees???

No, I am questioning what this guy said...pretty much everybody in the area listens to what he says as he has been keeping bees 40+ years here.

mike

**Kingfisher Apiaries** · 04-02-2011, 08:06 AM

Wally-world -.472/lb.

mike

**lupester** · 04-02-2011, 01:34 PM

Aldi's .42/lb

**NasalSponge** · 04-02-2011, 02:51 PM

Do you Texas beeks get a dandelion flow?? I agree on living in the "burbs" Thursday my backyard was alive with bee's working the dandelions, next day none, they had found something better though I can't tell you what. All three of my hive's have a near full super on them now.

**odfrank** · 04-02-2011, 04:27 PM

My supers in storage never get filled with honey. The ones on the hives are found and investigated by the bees who use them when a flow comes. Get with it or lose it.

**yamahawg** · 04-02-2011, 08:21 PM

I'm thinkin if the elders are saying that, you might be running a lil bit behind. I'm in North Carolina and threw one on last weekend due to space. Hive is booming and didn't want swarming to be in their minds before I split them.

**BCW5** · 04-02-2011, 08:32 PM

i supered last week after both of my hives finished off the first super. After a week of soggy weather the bees are bringing in dark honey this week. I live in Frisco. They are really going after the nelly r Stevens.

**lupester** · 04-03-2011, 10:23 AM

I have been walking though some fields by one of my apiaries and there is hairy vetch just drying up from lack of water. This really sucks because I actually have my hives ready to go this year right now when the normal flow starts.

**Brent** · 04-03-2011, 02:06 PM

Mike, we have old timers that place supers on their hives on March 20th no matter what. I split everything last month and I have one hive where the queen is laying eggs up to the second boxes top bar. So that one hive has a super of foundation.
Im seeing here what everyone else is seeing. Fields full of vetch thats drying up. Im seeing my bees robbing hummingbird feeders.
Im letting my splits raise their own queens, so the splits get a quart of 1:1 a day. Other hives get 2 quarts of syrup a week. I will cut back on the splits when the queens start laying.

Brent