New : When to add first super ?

[malabarchillin]

New guy,
My new hive appears to be doing well. I am on the East Coast of Central Fla. I have maybe 3 sides of frames in  10 frame deep hive that are not fully drawn out yet, but there seems to be a lot of capped and uncapped honey in the rest of the frames besides the brood.

Question #1 : I am expecting a small fall flow here. How much further should I let the hive fill before adding a super ?

Question #2 : I am new so I do not have any drawn frames for my super. I intend to 'crush and strain' for a few years so I will never have drawn frames for my supers.  I would like to use starter strips as much as possible. Because my frames are undrawn and I will always be using foundation can I alternate new foundation and starter strips or will the bee space get too fouled up ?  If I just use new foundation for every frame will the beespace still be screwed up ?

Thanks for your help.
Mike

http://mikesfarm1.blogspot.com/

[KONASDAD]

Add additional super when 80% of the below box is filled by brood, honey and pollen. The box begins to look "full" when you look from the top into a hive body.

[Brian D. Bray]

You can alternate frames with foundation with foundationless or starter strips--it helps keep the comb straight in the foundationless frames.  If you want to use nothing but foundationless or starter strips put the super between the bees and the entrance this also encourages them to draw from the top of the frame down.  Bees dislike climbing through empty space and will draw comb to fill it.  If you put the super of foundationless frames on top of a full super the bees may decide to build from the bottom up and you can end up will all kinds of weird comb shapes.

I've gone to foundationless frames entirely and have learned from experience about the way the bees build on the empty frames.

[annette]

What do you mean by "between the bees and the entrance"?

I am converting to foundationless frames with starter strips and so I was also wondering how to add an empty super with all starter strips.

Please explain further

Thanks
Annette

[Brian D. Bray]

If you use bottom entrances then place the super of foundationless frames under the the top super, if you use top entrances then place the super on top of the other super.  That way the bees have to pass through the empty super to get to the used portion of the hive. 

My experience has been that if you place a foundationless (starter strip) super on top of another super like many do, that the bees won't go up.  I find this method works just as well, if not better, than baiting the super with drawn frames and you don't run the risk of breaking up a brood chamber.

[malabarchillin]

Thanks for the replies.
I have only a hive body at the moment. If I add a super underneath that I assume that
they would start laying brood in it. If I put my super with foundation and/or starter strips
on top (like normal) will they be hesitant to go up ?
How do people that use just starter strips in supers begin each year when there are no drawn combs to
entice them up and not build from the bottom of the frames first ?

[Michael Bush]

>I have only a hive body at the moment. If I add a super underneath that I assume that
they would start laying brood in it.

Not any more likely than if you put it above.  Either way if they need the room they will lay brood in it.  If they don't, they won't.

> If I put my super with foundation and/or starter strips
on top (like normal) will they be hesitant to go up ?

That depends on the population of bees and the outside temperatures.  If it's chilly at night, yes.  If the population is low, yes.  If the population is high and it's not chilly at night, no.

>How do people that use just starter strips in supers begin each year when there are no drawn combs to
entice them up and not build from the bottom of the frames first ?

I put one drawn comb in the middle of the box.  If I don't have one, then I put one comb with foundation in the middle of the box.  It gives them a ladder to get up to the top to work.  By the time I'm putting supers on it's not that cold anymore.