Unwanted honey in super

[cpekarek]

I have 4 hives started from packages May 1st. All have 2 deep 10 frame brood boxes filled with good laying queens, brood in all stages with honey and pollen stores. I installed medium supers 8 days ago on each hive. The supers have alternating frames, every other one has foundation or no foundation with a starter strip. They are drawing frames out at a good pace so I may get some honey this season. I only want comb honey which I would take from the frames without foundation. Is there a problem with leaving the honey filled frames with foundation in the super until late fall for the bees to use?

[Acebird]

They are not going to use it until late winter and most likely will put brood in it.  If you don't mind it is all right.

[tjc1]

My experience agrees with Acebird - they will move up in the late winter/spring and put brood in those medium supers, which you may not want to use later for comb honey (only for looks - the brown comb doesn't affect the honey taste). If you extract it, no issue.

[GSF]

Not counting minutes but the longer you wait the harder the comb will become.

[cpekarek]

My plan is to remove the comb honey when it is 95-98%capped. As I remove a comb honey frame, I would replace it with another empty frame with a starter strip. I would leave the plastic foundation frames in the super for the bees to use before winter. I put queen excluders on 2 of the 4 boxes. If they use the supers for brood in the 2 boxes without an excluder, it's okay with me.

[iddee]

They will use the honey in the two bottom boxes first. When they need it, they will move up to the supers and leave the queen below to freeze. You will be queenless come spring.

[cpekarek]

okay, I'm confused. The bees will die because I have 2 healthy brood boxes, including very good honey stores, with a super on top that has extra honey in it?

[BeeMaster2]

The bees move up through the honey as the winter progresses. If the queen excluder is on above the brood where it is normally placed, the bees can move up. The queen cannot go through it. As soon as she is out of the cluster, she will freeze. Never leave the queen excluder on going into winter.
Jim

[cpekarek]

Got it. I plan on removing it once the bees stop storing honey.

Thanks

[Acebird]

In my area in the fall we have times of very warm days and very cool nights.  They still store honey (goldenrod) during the day and cluster at night.  There is not much brood if any.  It only takes one bad night to lose the queen or lose her laying capability.  You should find out from local people how long you can leave the excluder on before it becomes risky.

[cpekarek]

I'm 25 miles west of Chicago. We don't start cooling down until September 1st at the earliest. For the next 60 days we have highs around 85? and lows around 65?.

Thanks

[bwallace23350]

This leads me into a question of mine. How much honey will they need to survive a South Alabama winter?

[Acebird]

A lot more than an Upstate NY winter.  The difference is my bees don't collect any in the winter and yours do.

[GSF]

If nip comes to tuck you can feed them some thick sugar water during the winter. As long as the highs aren't in the 40's.  Better yet plan ahead and feed the heck out of them around the time the goldenrod ends.