honey super gots to go for the winter

[jester7891]

I stated a new hive last spring, did tremendously well, more bees than i ever had for a first year hive. The 2 brood supers are jammed full of honey. I want to take the honey super off soon for fall (live in NW NJ) and just go with the 2 brood chambers for winter (this is what I usually do). The honey super is drawn out and has about 2-3/8 frames full of honey/processed sugar water (im feeding all of my hives now). So many bees just dont fit into the 2 chambers (I dismantled it last weekend and watched it for the day - absolutely nowhere for them to go. I put the honey super back on and they fiiled it up right before dusk). Im guessing that when it gets cooler, there will be a reduction in the # of bees. Do i just leave the honey super there for the time being? What am I missing here?  Thanks

[BeeMaster2]

You can do what MB does. Wait until it is cold enough for the bees to bee in full cluster and then remove it.
Jim

[KeyLargoBees]

Just remember if you are feeding sugar water and they are filling the super with it the "honey"....it  isn't really honey and might not be as good as the stuff you get when not feeding ;-(

[mikecva]

What I did (about two weeks age) is pull the suppers, extract the honey and returned the supers to the colony for 24 hours for the to clean the wet comb. I then removed the supers and placed the supers on top of the hives for two full days (days were 80-83 dF)  for the bees to get everything they wanted then pull the supers at night. I then stack the supers and top with moth crystals (also called Para-Moth {paradich-lorobenzene}). Note: do not use moth balls   -Mike

[SawBee]

Last year I started putting green food coloring in the sugar water I was feeding.   It's easy to tell what the "green honey" is and that way it looks as bad as it tastes.