Yesterday I put an inner cover with a bee escape 1-way trap door between the top hive body and the only super.
It worked very well, this morning there was only 5 or 6 bees left in the super. I pulled out the frames one by one, cleaned up the extra wax and propolis and looked them over.
There were no brood cells. The three center frames were partially filled and capped, holding a total of about 2 or 3 pounds of honey. There was some uncapped nectar. Some of the other frames were partially drawn out with comb, and the remaining outer frames were bare.
Since its now September, I'm wondering if its a good time to remove the super to make sure the colony completely fills the two hive bodies for there winter stores. I haven't looked into them to determine how much honey is stored.
I'm in Idaho at 42:30 north latitude. Overnight temps have been into the mid to high 40s Fahrenheit. But we will probably have another 2 or 3 weeks of warm weather this month, with daytime temps in the low 90s.
In the Spring, my colony swarmed and split because the hive bodies got honey-bound. I don't really want that to happen again in this autumn. After the swarming, and when I discovered the honey-bound situation, I took out about 6 frames of honey from the top hive body, and did not look into the lower body.
Can anyone offer advice? Thanks!
Topic: Super & Bee Escape Trap Door (Read 2105 times)