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British Beekeepers Association Official Forum 

  • merits of putting an empty super under the brood box over winter

  • General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
 #4835  by MickBBKA
 16 Sep 2019, 01:17
I under super, IMO it don't matter, so what if they fill the brood comb above with stores, the queen will just lay in the under super and the stores will be where needed come Jan / Feb and she will have moved the brood nest up anyway, why have then shifting it all over the place ? It means more wax to cap. Main thing is not to use drone comb as an early spring burst will mean lots of wasted drones. I try to use drawn worker comb and if short put some foundation in, they often still want to draw some comb out over winter.

Cheers, Mick.
 #4839  by AdamD
 16 Sep 2019, 11:49
Beckley.Bees wrote:
15 Sep 2019, 19:23
Hi I am in my second full year as a beekeeper.
Last year I only had one hive starting late in the year so had no Honey.
Feeding was easy and I got them though the winter.
This year I have three hives.
I have taken off the last of this years Honey about a month ago then put the supers back on above the crown board to be clean out.
Three on each hive.
My bee’s clean out two from each hive which I removed.
Then when I had one honey super on each hive they started filling them up again.
I had done my mite treatment and all good there.
Now they are on the ivy down there in East Sussex.
I have not done any feeding.
All hives have got two full frames of stores in the brood box and a nearly full super over.
Do you think that would be ok now to leave them to it
I would be inclined to give them more stores - it's much easier now than in winter and if they have plenty in spring, a frame or two can be removed at that time and used later if you wish.