Carl-
Don't worry, the bees will be fine.  They've overcome
bigger problems than too much food!
If you have 60 medium frames of syrup, you've got
about 2 supers per hive, which coincidentally is
probably about the weight of the stores that they need
to get through the winter.  If you live in a
relatively mild area, you can leave the supers on the
hive, but if you live in an area that is cold enough
for the bees to be in a tight cluster much of the
winter, they may not be able to move the cluster to
cover the food source.  If you want to use those
supers for the honey flow next year, though, you are
probably stuck with having to extract them, and then
leaving them (while it is still warm) for the bees to
rob dry (obviously, you want them to be confined to
the deep hive bodies at this point).
If the deep frames are packed with pollen, some of
them will probably have to be discarded, or at least
replaced in the spring with new foundation - the bees
will build it out quickly.  If discarding it pains
you, you could freeze it and recycle it back into
colonies with poor pollen stores in the future.  But
for the winter, you can probably just leave them as
is, so long as you are providing another food source
in the stored syrup or refeeding syrup if they don't
have adequate stores in the deep hive bodies.
Again, the bees are gonna be fine for the winter -
just keep checking to make sure that they have
adequate honey/syrup, and come spring clear out some
space in the brood chamber to give the queen a place
to lay.  The learning never stops...
-Lee





__________________________________
Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005
http://mail.yahoo.com

-- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l for rules, FAQ and  other info ---