Ok a couple of questions.
This fall I will not be able to harvest the supers off of my hives. 2 hives are 3 mediums each and I foresee no problem with those.
But I have 4 other hives that are 2 deeps and 2 mediums. I was wondering what kind of harm this may cause to my bees if I leave these supers on until next year?
Any thoughts?
Keith
If it's just the supers it should be fine. If you have any queen excluders on you MUST get them off. Otherswise when the colony moves around you will have problems.
My question would be of the hives that have the deeps, How are they for weight ? It they are heavy then the colony has good stores and could get by with what they have. If they are light then they could use the additional stores but would over winter better with as minimum a space to heat as possible. You could freeze the frames from one of the extra boxes and feed if needed.
Quote from: Sparky on October 24, 2009, 08:11:28 PM
My question would be of the hives that have the deeps, How are they for weight ? It they are heavy then the colony has good stores and could get by with what they have. If they are light then they could use the additional stores but would over winter better with as minimum a space to heat as possible. You could freeze the frames from one of the extra boxes and feed if needed.
Sparky
Deeps are mostly brood and honey. I checked them in late August and the bees had a frame or two of honey but mostly brood in the deeps. This time of year I assume they are starting to backfill the deeps with honey. The supers are completely full of honey. Golden rod and aster are blooming now so the girls are still packing it in. I was more worried because, I will not be able to remove the supers until December and by that time I might have a cluster up in the top and risk breaking their cluster.
contactme_11
No queen excluders to worry about
Keith