put honey supers on now? or wait?

p51d · Post by **p51d** » Sun Mar 02, 2008 12:05 pm

My bees are very busy, I have feed all winter so they have good stores.

Are you guys putting honey supers on now and stop feeding or wait a couple more weeks?

Locust&Honey · Post by **Locust&Honey** » Sun Mar 02, 2008 1:19 pm

As for me, I will wait a couple of weeks. But as always I will be checking the forum to see what the general consensus will be.

Kurt Bower · Post by **Kurt Bower** » Sun Mar 02, 2008 2:28 pm

honey supers?
We still have a lot of time before the main flow. The main flow won't start until April 15 give or take. Between now and then you may be manipulating your hives significantly. You may have to split, you may have to deal with swarming or you may have to expand the brood chamber.
If you put your supers on, you will have a lot of equipment to deal with if anything happens between now and then. Admittedly, you can't make honey with the supers in the barn, but you are probably 5 weeks early.

Kurt

p51d · Post by **p51d** » Sun Mar 02, 2008 8:37 pm

Thanks, I think I will also wait a bit. Boy, one hive is really busy, the other so-so. Better safe than sorry so thanks for the response.

p51d · Post by **p51d** » Sun Mar 09, 2008 7:15 pm

O.K. no honey supers yet. If I have a really strong hive and split the hive is there a minumum distance I need to worry about? Otherwise, would they go back to the main hive with the queen???

Would three full frames in a new brood chamber be enought for a split or not?

Why three, well if the can comb these out in the next month couple of weeks before the flow I want a honey producing hive and a new one to et started.

As always, thanks for the information.

Locust&Honey · Post by **Locust&Honey** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 9:50 am

Do you have drones present? If not the queen won't be able to mate once she comes out.

When you split the hives ALL the foragers will return to the old hive they came from. Unless you place the queenless hive in the spot the hive is currently in. Either way one of your hives will only have nurse bees and noneof the old foragers. You will have to decide which hive you want this to happen to.

Good luck with your split.

Post by **Wally** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 12:32 pm

If I were to do a 3 frame split before the flow, I would take the queen with the split. "artificial swarm".

Otherwise, I would wait until after the harvest, then make an equal, or 5 frame split.

There are 50 other ways to make a split, so don't think I am saying this is the only successful way.

p51d · Post by **p51d** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 7:45 pm

My second hive a baeekeeper helped me with in March of last year. He took three frames from three hives and I gave him three empty frames.

They are really busy (and more aggressive) than the bees I got from Brushy Mountain.

Trying to figure the best time and way to split....