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