Bees focussed on eating honey in top medium super

799 Views 3 Replies 4 Participants Last post by Michael Bush, Apr 17, 2014

Dweeter

Discussion Starter · Apr 16, 2014

I just opened up my colony after a long winter, and things look good--queen is there, still lots of honey left, bees in good quantity. This is my first full year, though, and I was not sure about the pattern of eating going on in there.

There is still a number of frames with honey in the deep boxes at the base of the hive, though the bees seem to currently be targeting the top super for feeding. Is there a reason for this and should I do anything about it? I feel like I want to get them all down into the lower boxes to finish cleaning those out, and I believe that I've heard that bees tend to work upwards better than they work downwards.

Should I make sure the queen is down in the lower boxes and put an excluder in between the second deep super and the top medium one? Or is it best to wait to do something like this till a little later in the spring? I am concerned about the medium super becoming a site for brood rearing rather than the bottom brood box.

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Wolfer

· #2 · Apr 16, 2014

Their probably not eating all that honey. Their rearranging it to set up the broodnest. In the spring mine want two deeps for the brood. At the end of winter it's not uncommon to have all the brood in the bottom and nothing but capped honey in the top. As soon as buildup starts they'll move some down leaving a honey band circling the top of all the frames they plan on using for brood.

By mid/late summer the top deep will be back filled with honey and the brood in the bottom.

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burns375

· #3 · Apr 17, 2014

what wolfer said. They work vertically as if in a tree. The outside frames are honey, interior brood. The top boxes are typically the warmest and prefered to rear brood in during spring. I would wait a bit longer for nights to warm up before rearring the brood next.

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Michael Bush

· #4 · Apr 17, 2014

They burn through a lot of honey rearing brood.

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