This year I bought the makings for several new supers, built them over the
winter and had them ready for the flow.  I first used all of my fully drawn
supers on my hives to get as much honey as possible.  Since they are now
fully capped now I am putting on my new supers.  I'm a little disappointed
because my bees aren't taking to them with reckless abandon.  They really 
aren't doing much to draw them out at all.
 
They are all on top of the hives.  My beekeeping mentor has advised me to 
top super and not worry about moving supers around when adding.  I suspect
that this advice may have been good when using fully drawn comb but may not
be good for getting bees to draw out new foundation.  I'm also using
Permadent plastic foundation which the bees might not like as well as plain
old wax foundation.
 
So I'm floating some questions out here and we'll see how long they last
before they're shot out of the water.
 
1.  Should I have put on the new foundation first to encourage the bees to
draw it out?  I think that they wouldn't have made as much honey but I'd
have drawn comb if I did.
 
2.  Should I have mixed drawn comb and foundation in each super to
encourage bees to draw it out?  Maybe every other frame?
 
3.  Should I have put drawn comb on half of the hives to get some honey and
forced others to draw out foundation for the honey flow?
 
4.  Should I have put new supers of foundation under supers of drawn comb?
 
I'm just not impressed with what I tried this year and am developing a
better plan for next year.
 
The last plant of our local wildflower flow, horsemint, is blooming now.  
By July it just gets too hot and dry for much more nectar.  There's some
cotton planted around my land so I'll get some honey from that as well.  If
we get more rain, maybe the mesquite will bloom again.  We're about 5
inches above average for the year but June is behind average for the month
so far.
 
It's turning out to be a good year for honey here.  I hope everyone else is
seeing a good flow.
 
Ted Wout
Red Oak, TX (just south of Dallas)