We are going into our second year with our first hive. At the end of last year, we left the super on because there wasn't enough honey to extract so we figured it would help our bees get through the winter. Now that nicer weather is approaching in central NY, should we take the super off when warm enough and allow the bees to build their own stores back up before adding it back on, or should we just leave it on and add more supers as needed through the year? Thank you!
Here's what I would do, About the time for the flow I'd pull the capped frames of honey, sling it, then stick the frames back into the hive so they would fill it out again. The thing I've noticed is when you put a wet frame back into a hive like that it encourages robbing. Therefore maybe place one frame each day about dusk back in there if you have a lot of bees around.
It won't hurt anything to leave the super on there. You may have brood in there when you go to sling honey.
I had this issue my first year - the queen is definitely going to move up in there and lay brood in. If you want to keep supers just for honey, it's best to get them off before the end of the season. Otherwise, it becomes difficult to get them off and out of brood rotation.
Quote from: imcamod36 on March 21, 2016, 10:43:08 AM
We are going into our second year with our first hive.
A lot depends on the configuration of the hive and I assume you only have this one hive. Please describe the stack and what honey is left.