For the backyard beek with two or three hives, couldn’t we simply cycle the honey supers on the hives? I have a first year package hive with six boxes (all 8-frame mediums). The bottom three are brood, pollen, and honey – the top three, honey supers. Of the top three, the lowest one is full of capped honey, ready for harvest. The middle is ¾ full, and the top one has just been on a week – they’re busy drawing the frames with new comb.
My game plan (bear in mind, I’m a newb...) is to wait until the middle super is full; then pull the two full full supers, leaving the third for them to continue filling. Then after harvest, put the empty supers back on top of the newest box, and see if they can refill them before the end of August. I’ll leave them at least one full box for winter (which is pretty mild here...).
In this way, the harvested boxes get cleaned and reused by the hive they belong to. Will this cause robbing from other hives?