In André Simoneau's response to my post on the bee's immune system he said: Quote It seems that not too many years ago, a common attitude was to take the spring honey for the beekeeper while the darker, stronger fall honey was for winter stores (James E.Tew in Bee Culture,sept.96). This is not valid anymore. According to James, who is Extension Specialist in Apiculture "several papers have presented results concluding that common table sugar (sucrose) is normally a better winter food than the honey that bees collect from natural autumn sources." Unquote That is interesting, since I do extract in early summer. But I still think I avoid overwintering on fall honey. I follow the advice given me by Tony Jadczak and George Imire which is to pull my honey after the major nectar flow (usually always clover) which in my area ends in July. I put on an inner cover and the extracted supers go on top for the bees to clean out and take down. And here is my question and my guess as to the answer to the question. What are the mechanics of honey movement in the hive after that point? My guess is that the bees continue to fill the upper body (below the extracted supers) and the queen is slowly forced down to the lower hive body. Some excess honey works its way into the upper supers, but most, in the middle of summer, ends up in the lower two hive bodies especially when we go into our normal nectar dearth in August. When our dearth period ends, the bees continue to fill the lower hive bodies and and any excess, which is later fall honey, ends up either in the upper supers or end frames of the lower hive body, but none or nearly none is in the upper hive body. I pull the supers and extract them in September and usually get 20-40 pounds of fall honey which does granulate by October/November. So my bees will finish off any of the quick granulating honey early and have only the summer honey to overwinter on (I no longer feed either in the winter or spring. Since I shifted I have not had need to. They have always overwintered well.) Before I followed Tony's advice, I did like most in our area an extracted everything in the fall. And my bees got dysentery and had slow buildup or dead hives the spring. I did feed sugar syrup... but my guess is that the honey mechanics here lead to fall honey being available in mid/late winter and the sugar syrup, early. The bees, with the supers on and easily accessible, filled them first with summer honey and continued to work down to the lower hive bodies. But the latest honey to go in before feeding sugar syrup was fall honey and it would have been in both the top box and middle of the lower box. All the sugar syrup would have also gone into the lower box. So the bees would go from sugar syrup to fall honey and finally to summer honey (I realize it might not be that clear cut, but approximately so). So my bees were feeding on the worst possible honey in mid-late winter, which is why they had dysentery and came out of the winter weak. Since I switched, with few exceptions my bees out produce those who only extract in the fall. My norm is 75 lb.minimum per hive while most others average 20-40 pounds, just as I once did. Comments appreciated. I am sure George will set me right. Bill Truesdell Bath, ME