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Most of my hives do this when they get hot and crowded. I use all medium
boxes. I rotate the top and bottom of the three brood boxes frequently to
keep the queen laying and prevent swarming. I would normally start with two
supers on a good hive. When I see a "beard" of bees I would add a third
super on top and a forth on the bottom. This would now be a total of seven
medium boxes, with an Imirie shim between the two top supers. In my
situation, the queen never lays in the bottom medium box. I "bottom super"
with undrawn foundation. When I remove it at the end of the season, it is
usually drawn with some pollen. I use these for next years nucs.
Is this lot of work? Yes. But sometimes I can get 200 lb or more out of a
hive this way. I "bottom super" mostly to protect the bees from skunks. As
long as they are in there anyway they may as well help draw comb.
Jim Hock
Wethersfield, CT.
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I have two hives of Italian bees.
One behaves "normally". Never mind what that means. It's the other hive:
I have bees all over the outside of the hive just hanging out and remaining
still.. They've been that way for weeks through all kinds of weather, hot,
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