partially filled frames

[Rabbitdog]

I know this has probably been discussed before but I couldn't find any info.  I have 10-12 hives and each one has a shallow super that is only partially filled/capped.   Normally, I leave one medium on each colony for the winter and it works fine in central VA.  However, I don't want to leave an additional partial super on each colony and I don't have room in the freezer for all of these partial frames.  How can I "force" the bees to combine and cap for extraction real soon?
Thanks in advance!

[Michael Bush]

Have you tried moving them above an inner cover?  That tends to make them think it's outside the hive proper and move it.

[Chris]

We only have 2 hives, which were started late from nucs (in June) in northern Michigan.  (Our hives last year were destroyed by resident black bears.  We now have a bigger elec fence that will stop cattle.)  By the time our bees got started in June, our biggest early spring pollen season was on the downhill side.

We harvested our honey last weekend (Oct 1st) because it is starting to get chilly here at night and we need to get the bees medicated.  Unfortunately, we discovered that very little of the frames were capped.  We have mostly the uncapped, runny liquid in the frames.

Any idea why the bees didn't cap all of it?  Was it because they got such a late start?  Some of the frames had comb already drawn out, so they didn't have to do too much of that...

[Finsky]

If you want winter food capped you must feed sugar that cells become full and bees cap them. There is no other way.

Of course filled combs guarantee that  there are food enough in the hive.

But don't leave vain space into hive. It makes only harm. If you have some food in cells and you like to get them empty, put combs above inner cover on the top of hive so they  clean them.  Dont' let robbers come into play.

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