Hey guys...
Information: I only work off of one brood chamber and add honey supers as they are needed. I'm thinking about adding a medium super above my current brood chambers but below the honey super and excluder. The honey in the super is not quite capped off. What I'd like to do is come back in a month, take the mediums that, hopefully, the queens have layed in, and set them on top of some weaker hives for additional bees. I'm also considering going to all medium brood chambers in the future.
Questions...
1. If I do this, will the bees finish capping off the upper supers or will they ignore that and just start storing in the new supers until the queen starts laying in there? Am I going to come back in a month and find that they have moved stores from the upper super into the new middle super?
2. Will the queen continue to lay in the lower chamber?
3. Is this a good idea to help the weaker hives?
I'd love to hear good thoughts and bad thoughts on this possible move...Tell me this is a good idea or tell me I'm an idiot. I'm ok with honesty.
Seriously? Nobody has any thoughts for me?
You can put any box you like wherever you like. The bees will work it out.
>1. If I do this, will the bees finish capping off the upper supers or will they ignore that and just start storing in the new supers until the queen starts laying in there?
You can never tell. But odds are bees will fill what comb they have before they draw new comb.
> Am I going to come back in a month and find that they have moved stores from the upper super into the new middle super?
Doubtful. Once they have capped stores they seldom move them at all.
>2. Will the queen continue to lay in the lower chamber?
Doubtful. If she's a good queen she will run out of room.
>3. Is this a good idea to help the weaker hives?
It's always hard to say. Sometimes a hive just needs enough workers to get going. Sometimes they just don't have what it takes and helping them does no good. It's always a gamble, but as you do this longer you get better at guessing. One clue is which direction are they going? If they are going up then a boost may help them accelerate. If they are going down, then it's probably a lost cause.