Hello Gang,

 John asked for advice on what to do with left over
winter supers.,

I have the same problem with excess honey supers in the spring and
early summer. I also use Carniolan bees. This honey is sugar honey,
fed to the bees in early spring to stimulate brood production.
It is in Illinois supers, one per hive. I am planning to winter over
in double deeps this year due to the mild winters we have been having
and are predicted to have for the next two decades, (El Nino, La Nina).

The trouble with Carni's is that the more robust the colony, the more
they will eat during mild winters. My guess is that you live in the
Virginia area. I gathered this from you signature. Your winters
should be quite mild compared to New England.

I had some very robust colonies going into winter. These produced the
most honey and brood. These same colonies were quite weak this spring
and had to be fed to survive. Still clinging to a large number of bees,
they literally ate their way out of house and home. The best over wintering
colony I had was the one I worried about the most last fall. Compared
to the robust colonies, it was weak. But was it?

The so called "Weak Colonies" over wintered very well and are ahead of
the formerly robust colonies. I conclude that the smaller colonies
had less of an appetite and simply required less food over all.
With fewer mouths to feed, they ate less of the allotted stores.

I left them plenty of store. This "Weak", colony had a full medium
super of fall honey left over. I did not stimulate this colony with syrup
for the entire two months that the robust colonies required feed.
This weak colony gave me a nice split while the robust one of the
formerly robust ones was too weak to split yet.

So what are we to conclude from all of this?

I am going to pull some nucs from robust colonies in late September
and over winter them as nucs in duplex hive bodies atop another hive.
Not a robust hive either, simply an ordinary one. I will wrap the
combination in plastic leaving each colony a winter entrance.
I will also use open mesh bottom boards (OMBB) to aid in winter ventilation.
My hives are on pallets so there is some protection from wind and I will
add to this protection by placing fir tree branches over the mouse guarded
fully open main entrance.

My advice to you is to do the same thing. Reduce the size of your hives
to nucs and over winter them that way. Feed the daylights out of them
with that extra honey. I plan to do this too.

Simply place a full honey super on top of an inner cover and scratch
the cappings. Leave no access to this super from the out side. Reduce
the entrance to the smallest one possible, considering the ambient temperature. This will allow the bees to bring down the honey and
cram it into the brood chamber. Brood at this time of year will be
reduced by the bees anyway. Timing will depend on the bloom and
onset of fall in your area. September is right for New England to begin
nucs. I suspect it will be later in Virginia.


Ernie Gregoire "Beekeeper," definition= partially brave,

                            partially excentric

Grist Mill Apiary

Canaan, New Hampshire, USA


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05/13/99 09:59:38