Uncapped honey supers

855 Views 1 Reply 2 Participants Last post by Pete O, Jul 2, 2014

WBVC

Discussion Starter · Jul 1, 2014

I posted a while back about a hive that is strong but has oodles of drones hanging out on the honey supers...well mainly on the top honey super.

Yesterday I was checking for capped honey frames in the top supers for extraction. This hives top super was full of uncapped nectar. I then checked the lower super and found the same...wall to wall nectar and none capped.

Should I give them another super of recently extracted honey frames as these are filled or wait until they start capping?

Would this be related to so many sitting on, and likely feeding on, the open nectar.

This is the only hive I have come across with no capped honey in the supers. There does appear to be capped honey in their brood boxes.

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Pete O

· #2 · Jul 2, 2014

You need a refractometer. I also had a lot of uncapped honey cells but when I measured them for water, they were at a perfectly acceptable 17%. These frames were extracted along with the capped cells and yielded an excellent light colored honey with 17% water. There are honey refractometers on Ebay for $17 and they are very easy to use.

When it comes to the drone cells in the honey supers, you can just put those frames on top and outer sides, or if there aren't too many, they can be removed with a warm melon baller.

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