How quickly can a strong hive (two ten frame deep boxes full of bees) draw out all of the comb on a 10 frame shallow super?
This year I had a strong single deep hive draw out, and fill, a shallow super in 2 weeks. All 10 frames.
That's how fast it CAN happen. The real question is how fast WILL it happen. I've also seen a 2 deep hive completely ignore a super for 2 years. If they think they need it, or can use it, they can fill it very quickly - until then...don't hold your breath.
Some here might know how to encourage then to do so. I'm apparently not one of them.
When we have Brazillian Pepper flow here in November those guys can fill a 10 frame super in 10 days to 2 weeks max, fully capped.
tlynn,
How is that Brazillian pepper honey? We've got lots of them on the coast here (15 mi away) and I was toying with moving a couple of hives over to some out yards I can access there.
Scott
Thanks for the input. I have a shallow super with plastic frames and foundation that I put on top many weeks ago because the bees were packed in so tight and had no more room (or so I thought). They didn't want anything to do with it for a week or so, so I put it between the two deep hive bodies since my mentor thought that would encourage them to draw out the comb, but no luck. A couple weeks later I put it back on top and gave them a top entrance, but that still didn't work. The two deep hive bodies are still packed full of bees. I hoped they would draw out the super and fill with honey (for me!), but no luck. I'm apparently not much of bee farmer.