I have several questions regarding spring supering.
1)Do I put supers on one at a time as they fill or several at once?
2)About half of my medium frames are drawn out. Do I mix the drawn and undrawn frames, or keep them separate?
3)If I keep them separate, does the undrawn box go above or under the drawn box?
4)Do I wait until the brood boxes are both full before I super, or as soon as it stays warm?
Thanks for all the help!
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Often supers are needed just to enlarge the hive when new bees emerge every day more and more. Some foundations are good because drawing them hinders swarming.
the answer to your first question. If you are doing extracted honey or crush and strain what you want to do is only put one super on at a time till it is 3/4 drawn comb. Before installing another super on top take the two middle frames of the drawn comb with bees and put them in the top super, and the two frames from the top super ( undrawn ) in the bottom super this is how you continue until they stop drawing wax. If you have drawn comb which is foundation with wax drawn out this is when you can install all the supers at once they claim that this makes the bees want to gather lots of nectar due to empty comb and also empty comb keeps them from becoming honey bound and throwing a swarm. Second question keep the drawn frames seperate.Third question Install a box of drawn empty comb over the top brood box then install one empty super with undrawn comb on top this gives them somewhere to put nectar while they start drawing comb and relieves congestion in the brood boxes so they dont store honey down below. dont install any supers until your top brood box is 3/4 drawn out thats how its done even with your brood boxes. Now cut comb honey is done differently in the order that the boxes are placed im assuming you are going to be extracting for liquid honey.
Perfect! Thank you!
If small hive beetles are in your area don't give them more comb than they can guard.