super above inner cover - convential wisdom?

[Andrew Dewey]

I had 4 supers with some honey (not full by any standard) - I dutifully used my cappings scratcher to open up the honey before putting the supers above the inner covers on 4 hives I wanted to get some more supplies in for winter. My idea was that the bees would clean out the supers moving the honey downward.

Little did I know the bees would have plans of their own.

Today, about 10 days after placing the supers I was checking the hives, strapping them down ahead of the coming storm.

The girls had recapped all the honey I had uncapped for them and added to it in all four supers! Maybe there is a difference between wet extracted supers and supers that didn't have enough honey to extract. In any event, so much for trying to feed the girls honey.

I set the four supers on a hive stand and put a cover on them. It was surrounded by bees when I left the yard and I presume in a day or two all will be completely robbed out.

[Andrew Dewey]

I really need to learn how to spell "conventional."

[Mike Gillmore]

I'm curious if you placed an empty box between the inner cover and the supers to be cleaned up.

[Michael Palmer]

I'm curious if you placed an empty box between the inner cover and the supers to be cleaned up.

And that's how it's done here Mike. Placing a partially filled super over the inner cover, with the intention of having the bees clean it out, doesn't usually work, as Andrew found out. Place an empty super with no frames between inner cover and partially filled super, and the bees will remove the honey from the super and move it down.