Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum

BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: pondman on July 29, 2007, 07:29:31 PM

Title: Honey bound
Post by: pondman on July 29, 2007, 07:29:31 PM
I hope that I use the right wording for this....I have 6 hives total as I looked at them on saturday I found that 2 of them are full of honey in the supers an brood chamber also...Is there something that Iam doing wrong our is this something they do. They have plenty of room. I have not pulled any honey yet this year just want to make sure they have plenty going into winter this year. So I don't have to feed them. If they keep going like they are I will be adding supers to all of the six this week.

Thank You
James
Pondman
Title: Re: Honey bound
Post by: sean on July 29, 2007, 08:55:34 PM
I wouldn't say you have done anything wrong. you need to monitor the hives more closely to ensure they don't become honey bound. Running out of space will lead to swarming. I think you now need to super from the bottom with those two hives. The more experienced and knowledgeable beeks may say differently as i am quite inexperienced.
Title: Re: Honey bound
Post by: Potlicker1 on July 29, 2007, 08:56:33 PM
I believe you have a few options. First you are correct if your thinking of adding another super although you said they have room. If you add another you may also want to remove a few of the honey bound frames up into the new box and provide some new, unoccupied space. I experienced this recently as well and this method worked. Some say the bees will remove the honey and make room for "your majesty" but i'm not sure about that. I'd prefer to manage instead. I was pollen bound as well and this seemed to work well. They always seem to keep you on your toes. Good luck.
Title: Re: Honey bound
Post by: sean on July 29, 2007, 09:30:19 PM
didn't see that you still had space in the brood boxes. i agree with what potlicker says, move out the frames that have honey and repalce with empty/undrawn ones