[Plannerwgp]

Unfortunately I will be having serious surgery in 1 1/2 weeks. I will not be able to pull about 10 supers however they are not full and what ever honey is there is mostly uncapped.I have a friend who will pull them and place them in my garage and cover them or I can just leave them on until about the end of november when I should be able to do some work. Is it best to leave them on for a couple of months or take them off and store them?
Thanks

 

[JWPalmer]

Planner, I would leave them on the hives. As long as the colonies stay strong and healthy, they bees do a better job than we do of keeping the comb nice. And, you may find the supers full and capped later this season after goldenrod is done.

 

[elmer_fud]

I have also heard some people leave the supers on for the winter and extract in the spring. The theory is the bees will then have plenty of stores for the winter and everything left in the spring is excess that can be harvested. I do not do this and have not looked into it in detail so I do not know if there are any disadvantages to this method. It may be worth taking some time to research.

 

[crofter]

Just make sure there are no queen excluders left in the stack or Queenie could get abandoned below as bees move up.

 

[Lburou]

Planner, I would leave them on the hives. As long as the colonies stay strong and healthy, they bees do a better job than we do of keeping the comb nice. And, you may find the supers full and capped later this season after goldenrod is done.

Just make sure there are no queen excluders left in the stack or Queenie could get abandoned below as bees move up.

I like the advice above. Stacking supers in my location without precautions would surely result in wax moth and small hive beetle damage, (meaning, loss of the honeycombs and honey from infestation of either moths or beetles). Leaving supers on hives allows bees to patrol for pests on warm days over winter. In this case, doing nothing may be the best thing you can do.

 

[rwlaw]

Yup leave em on. Hope everything goes well for you!

 

[Fivej]

I am in a similar situation, (although not as serious and as long) and came to the conclusion that leaving them on is the better option. You might want to consider closing upper entrances and reducing lower and having robber screens in place. At least that is what I am doing. Best of luck on your surgery. J

 

[Oldtimer]

If you are hoping to eat the honey, leaving the boxes of mostly uncapped honey, stacked in your garage untill November, would be a very bad plan indeed.

 

[Plannerwgp]

I think I will leave the uncapped supers on for the winter as I have a serious health issue. My friends and I took off the supers that had some partially capped honey and capped honey.I experimented and extracted those frames until we had one 5 gallon bucket. It had a moisture content of 19.3. I placed it in a small room with a dehumidifier and within a few hours it reduced to 19.1. I will do the same all day today and based on experience it should reduce to 18.6 or lower.At that time I will pour it into a heated bottling tank and let it sit for a few days. For some reason the heat reduces moisture by a small amount. Thanks

If you are hoping to eat the honey, leaving the boxes of mostly uncapped honey, stacked in your garage untill November, would be a very bad plan indeed.

 

[AHudd]

In a high humidity area such as mine, the more surface area the bees have to store nectar, the easier it is for them to dry it down. At the end of the season when no nectar is coming in, what looked like an almost full frame of honey ends up being a half frame of capped honey. If given time they will consolidate all the nectar on the frames into capped honey before Winter arrives. You could extract at that time if the timing of your surgery would allow.
The supers should be fine over Winter, but I would remove them before Spring build-up or the Queen will lay in them. For my area that can be as early as Feb.

I have also stored frames of partially uncapped nectar in the freezer over Winter. After thawing in the Spring, the nectar was thicker than when it went into the freezer. I put them back on the hives as needed.

I hope your recovery goes well.

Alex

 

[Plannerwgp]

Alex
Thanks for the kind words. Means alot at a difficult time.

In a high humidity area such as mine, the more surface area the bees have to store nectar, the easier it is for them to dry it down. At the end of the season when no nectar is coming in, what looked like an almost full frame of honey ends up being a half frame of capped honey. If given time they will consolidate all the nectar on the frames into capped honey before Winter arrives. You could extract at that time if the timing of your surgery would allow.
The supers should be fine over Winter, but I would remove them before Spring build-up or the Queen will lay in them. For my area that can be as early as Feb.

I have also stored frames of partially uncapped nectar in the freezer over Winter. After thawing in the Spring, the nectar was thicker than when it went into the freezer. I put them back on the hives as needed.

I hope your recovery goes well.

Alex

 

[Gray Goose]

Planner, I would leave them on the hives. As long as the colonies stay strong and healthy, they bees do a better job than we do of keeping the comb nice. And, you may find the supers full and capped later this season after goldenrod is done.

Concur, I would leave the supers with the bee till you can take them in Nov. in the garage is opportunity for problems.

 

[Plannerwgp]

Friend help me extract many supers and the remainder will be left in until spring as I have no other choice. The wet frames from extraction will have to remain in my garage. I can vent them so air goes thru the stack of about 10. Is there anything else I. An do with the wet supers that were extracted?
Thank

 

[Gray Goose]

Can your friend add an empty medium to a hive, then stack them onto a hive or 2 that may be a bit low on stores to clean out. then go back in 8 days or so and place them in your garage "sealed" on a top cover with top cover on them? that would get them dried out and stored.

GG

 

[Joel]

Hive beetles love unextracted or wet supers not on a hive.....I would leave the extracted wet supers out for the bees to rob and then store them, your supers are safe, your bees are better stored for winter. In my 2nd year of beekeeping, 1994, I had surgery that laid me up for about 8 weeks with another few months of recovery. The body has an amazing gift for healing but.....it takes time and at it's own pace....it is hard to surrender to a health issue but once you have you will be on a better pace for healing. Whatever happens there will always be more bees to come.

 

[Plannerwgp]

Joel
Thanks for the inspiring note. I am 79 and and have an early stage of cancer and after surgery will probably undergo chemo. I have thought of giving up beekeeping, but I am told my prognosis is good, and I should be around for quite a few years. I purchased nucs every year so based on your thoughts I can just as well purchase next year. Thanks again for your note it was very helpful.I will try and leave the supers out but when I did this a month ago with some older deeps the racoons dimolished them in a couple of days. They were able to pul the frames out one by one from the deeps.

Hive beetles love unextracted or wet supers not on a hive.....I would leave the extracted wet supers out for the bees to rob and then store them, your supers are safe, your bees are better stored for winter. In my 2nd year of beekeeping, 1994, I had surgery that laid me up for about 8 weeks with another few months of recovery. The body has an amazing gift for healing but.....it takes time and at it's own pace....it is hard to surrender to a health issue but once you have you will be on a better pace for healing. Whatever happens there will always be more bees to come.