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What happens if your bees run out of space?
If your bees run out of space on frames then they will start to build wild
comb. You can see a good example of this in the photos below.
You should remove this because it’s impossible to inspect it and if it gets
large it can become very fragile without the support of a frame around it.
Cut it out with your hive tool, make sure that the queen is not on it before
you remove it from the hive. If there is nectar in it you can extract this and
feed it back to the bees using a feeder or soak it into a sponge placed on
a clearer board above the bees. If there is brood in it you could feed the
grubs to the birds so as not to waste it. The wax can be melted and used
as described on
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.
As the colony grows you can move the
divider board.
New frames are added.
The divider board acts as the end
of the hive.
All the frames are pushed together
to make sure there are no gaps.
This is what happens if you don’t
give the bees enough new frames!
Wild comb built in the gap between
the dummy board and the end.
The time to put the supers on is around the end of April beginning of
May. If you live in an area of oil seed rape which provides the bees with
enormous amounts of nectar very quickly, you must put the supers on
before the flowers appear.
Can you add supers too quickly?
Yes. If you provide the bees with too much space, early in the season
you make it harder for the bees to maintain the temperature in the
brood nest. Also, if you have received a nucleus colony, wait until the
bees have drawn out the wax on ten frames in the brood box before
adding supers.
Preparing the supers
You can preassemble the supers with the frames inside ready to put on
the hive. You should remember that the supers will be holding honey that
you will eat - so you should try to keep them ‘food safe’ (i.e. don’t put
them directly on the ground and get them covered in mud).
When should I add honey supers?
Queen excluders fit directly onto
the frames.
You must put the queen excluders on
in pairs to cover all the brood frames.
The super box fits neatly on top.
The queen excluders stop the queen
from getting into the supers. You
don’t want brood in the supers
because these are just for honey
storage. When you first put supers on
with new foundation, the bees can
be a little slow to move up into them
so you can wait until the bees are
drawing out the wax before putting
the queen excluders in place.
4 queen excluders.
Queen excluder
A large colony with two layer of supers.
Can supers be stacked on top of each other?
Yes, you can either put supers above or below other supers, you would do
this if there is a large nectar flow.
A large colony with one layer of supers.
Cover boards sit on top of the supers
and the lid goes on top.
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