Significants of First Frost

[harvey]

I keep reading of first frost.  As a new bee person, not yet a beek,  What type of changes come with the first frost?   I have two medium supers on top of two deeps right now and the bee's are busting but with all the golden rod.  I am thinking of pulling the two honey supers around the 15th, of September and whatever they get after that will be theirs.  Right now the two deeps and the first super are crowded with bees.  Before I put the supers on they had the top deep so full of honey it was getting very dificult to lift off for inspections.  Am I going in the right direction here?  I am worried with the amount of bees in the hive that if I pull the supers I will really crowd the bee's, they don't seem to have reduced in numbers yet and two weeks ago there was a lot of capped brood.

[Kathyp]

it's not biblical, i just find it a good way to judge what might be going on in the hive.  brood production will be only what the bees can cover.  anything else will get chilled and ripped out.  bees will be doing more clustering.  fall flow will diminish.  first frost will be my last or close to last hive check.  after that, other than to lift the lid and check the dry sugar stores, i will not open the hives again until a warmish day in February.

as you go toward winter, you want to crowd the bees down.  i don't know what your winters are like, so i don't know how early you need to do this.  here, i will do it by the end of this month unless we have an unusually warm fall and i still find masses of brood in the hives.  brood production has been unusually high, so i  may need to adjust my time line.

do you have any local beekeepers who can give you some guidance for your area?

[harvey]

I have an ole timer friend that use to keep bee's,  he is the one with the four frame extractor and hot knife for sale.  He wants a fresh jar of honey for both!   I can ask him.  He hasn't kept bees in almost 20 years but he used to have many hives.    I don't know if I could make all the bees that are currently in the hive fit in just the two deeps.  Seems my queen has bee pretty busy.  I probably should check the two deeps though as I have heard that sometimes they take the honey from them and put up in the supers?   I do know though that they have realy been bringing in a lot of pollen off of the golden rod.  I go down and walk through the golden rod and can't get over all the bees there.  Most with legs that look like ballons of pollen.  I hope they are getting as much nectar and they are pollen.  I think they will have good goldenrod for a few more weeks.  If I crowd them down now is there a chance they would swarm?

[Kathyp]

you will have to go with your gut, or get some local advice on timing.  i will tell you that i have been fooled by looking at the top box jammed with bees, then checking to the bottom and finding out that the bottom box was not well used.  before you can make a plan, you have to know what things look like all the way to the bottom.  if you haven't been through them for awhile, get some advice from a local and then check them all the way through.

[iddee]

Set the supers off. Lift the two deeps and bottom board. If it is less than 100 lbs., replace supers until it is well over 100 lbs.