what is the prefered extraction method?

[rand]

Hi,

I have 15 hives with two deeps on the brood nest.
The second super will be full of honey in about 14 days
and the third super will be full of honey in something like 30-40 days.

What is the prefered method for greater crop....
Should i wait and extract all the supers together
or extract the second, wait two-three weeks and
extract the third super?

Thanks, Randi

[Rob-bee]

Trying to figure your hive set-up as I am reading your question. I assume you have two deeps per hive and either two mediums or two shallows on top of those. If that is the case I assume you would be extracting at the least 15 supers. ( that is a lot of supers to extract assuming you are a hobbyist) If that can be done in a relatively short amount of time, and you are expecting a decent nectar flow to continue, what I would do is extract what was ready and when I placed the "wets" back on the hives I would "checkerboard" the supers. If you are not familiar with checker-boarding you can do a search on here for a detailed explanation. But in the short explanation you would take five frames from the extracted super and alternate them with the super you left on the hive. So it would look like one full frame one empty frame one full one empty. So you would have five full frames five empty frames per super. This will make the girls think that the hive is not full of honey and work harder to fill the hive. So if the flow is sufficient enough this to happen in thirty days I would then extract both suppers, making sure there was enough stores in the deeps to keep them supplied until I could process what I took. Assuming the flow would be over by then I would only place one supper back on each hive and place the other suppers out in the yard for the bees to clean up. Then if you have a fall flow the supers that were cleaned and safely stored to keep wax moths out, I would then place them back on the hives and checkerboard them again. But be sure you leave enough stores for the winter. That is what I do, and it works for me. But I live in North Carolina the nectar flow here may be quite a bit different than yours. You have to adopt it to your seasons.

[rand]

Hi Rob-bee, i will try checker-boarding,
it sounds very reasnable and efficient.

Thanks alot
Randi