I'm wondering if I've made a mistake. One colony was ready for a second super so I took it off and added another one on, and placed the full one back on top. Your typical bottom supering technique. The problem I think i'm having is that it seems to be taking them a long time to cap off that top super. When I moved it up it was full of uncapped honey and they only have about 10% of it capped after a week and a half. My question is if I should have allowed them to cap it before moving it up. :?
are they filling the other one you put below it?
Yes there is uncapped honey in it as well. Thats why I also thought perhaps I was distracting them from the original job at hand.
They may be moving some of the honey down closer to the brood if there is not much of a flow.
They wont cap it intill it is around 18% they know what they are doing.if they are still bringing nectar in they will fill the box or at least start to draw it out if it is not drawn already ,if the box is drawn i hope you have excluder in place or brood placement will move up closer to honey. RDY-B
that would be moisture content ;) :) :lol:
It has been pretty humid around here this summer. It might be taking a while to dry it out. The brood chambers have plenty so I know its not being moved. Thanks for all the great advise.
Go Bees
curing honey takes room. The more nectar to cure the more comb space is used to cure it. It is possible to have 3 supers of uncapped honey being cured at the same time. The bees move the honey around so that cells having the same water content are combined and when down to under 18% water they will begin capping it. Don't worry, the bees know what they're doing.