Question about adding supers

[antaro]

Greetings all,
After reading more about queen excluders on this forum, I came to the conclusion that I should get rid of mine on a particularly crowded hive that I had already split once this season.

Once I removed the excluder, the bees went full task on the frames: Drew them out, capping honey, and the queen is having a field day laying eggs. No problems as I take this to mean that the queen needed new space (pretty darn crowded in the bottom two deeps due to massive amounts of bees and a bit of a pollen backfill). Now I am at the point where the super is probably over 70% filled. And obviously the queen is using it for laying purposes as well. So my question is this: Do I just add another super? Try and use the queen excluder on this one? Or just let them free-range it forever?

Will this expansion ever stop? Will they be able to manage so much space (two deeps, two supers - not excluded) when it comes to heating themselves over the winter?

A little direction would be appreciated!
Thanks!

[alfred]

I would add the new super at this point. I wouldn't use the queen excluder, but then I don't use them anyway.
Alfred

[antaro]

So what is the point of a super vs. just adding another deep?
I mean, if they need that much space and excluders aren't used, wouldn't it be more sense to just add deeps?

[Kathyp]

in our area the expansion will slow down with the end of the blackberry bloom.  after that, they are hit and miss with wild flowers and if the temps ever get to where they should be, things will dry up some.  we get another little burst in early fall, but not much.  i would add the honey super because as the brood production slows they will backfill the top with honey.  you would be ok to add a deep but if you do that you will probably end up having to reduce them back to two in the fall.

your choice :-)

[antaro]

Kathy:
So you would advise another super (making two deeps and two supers) and then come fall/winter you'd expect them to backfill old brood cells with honey. Following that, I would just cut out both supers and leave the two deeps come winter?

Do I have that right?

And you are guessing that there isn't enough going on for them to fill another deep, thereby making sense for a super.

[Kathyp]

that would be my guess and i would not leave 3 deep in our area..

just seems to me it would be easier in fall to pull 2 honey supers than to be rearranging the frames in 3 deeps to get down to 2.

as you get closer to fall, if you find the queen is still laying in the honey supers, you can run her down and put an excluder between the supers and the deeps until the brood is all hatched.  you can also pull some honey frames from your deeps now and replace them with foundation or drawn comb and give her more room below.  freeze the honey frames for feeding back later.  you have lots of options so pick what will work for you and if you want to send some pics so that we can look at frames, that would be ok too.