Hello all and thank you for all of the information that I have gotten from reading this site. A little background, I got my hive around may of this year it is my first and only one so far. I only had a 5 inch (super??) so I put that on after a week and they filled it in the next week I installed another (i think you would call it a super because of where I put it but it is the same size as my hive body) anyway it is now directly above my hive body and 8 frames are full, that was about three weeks ago. Oh and BTW I am in central Missouri.
OK on to the question, I added another large super onto the hive I put it between the small one which is full of honey and the one above the hive body, any way they have not done anything in this yet when I inspectedd this weekend they where exploring it but nothing has been built. Should I be concerned its been on a few weeks, do they have enough honey to make it through the winter? Are they not building more because it is just so hot and dry here that nothing is growing? I would like to harvest maybe 2 of the small frames of honey just to try it but am not sure that would be a good idea? Should I be feeding them sugar water or wait until closer to winter to worry about that?
Sorry this is so long and hopefully it isnt too confusing.
You were right in the termonology. When a box is used for the storing of honey (intentionaly) it is refered to as a super, comming from the word "superimpose"-to add on. Unless you get enough honey to overwinter the hive, I would advise against doing any sort of extraction. If you're using an extractor, you'll lose close to a quart of honey just "lubricating" everything. Unless you have at least one super to harvest, leave it for the bees.