How long for supers in west central Arkansas?

[RangerBrad]

Hey folks, Spring has certainly sprung around here and I,ve had my first supers on for about 2 weeks. Since this will be my first year with supers ( installed my first bees last spring). How long should it take to build comb and fill this first super so I can put my second super on? The hives are strong and every thing has been in bloom for about a month. And by the way how many supers should I look forward to using this year? I've only got two hives and 2 supers per hive. I thought that if I needed more I could just collect the honey from the supers and then return them to the hives but want to make sure I leave plenty of honey for the bees so that they can carry themselves through any dearths and next winter into next spring without me feeding them. I havent fed them since last sept. oct. and I'd like to keep it that way. Thank's, Brad

[AllenF]

As for how fast a super fills, only God can know that.  There are too many variables.   Your bees, Whats blooming, weather, everything else.   Keep an eye on it during the honey flow.   Add a second super when 7 frames are full.  You can extract and return a super the same day, but you don't want to crowd your bees.  If you want, you can pull just 1 or 2 frames for yourself and leave the rest for the bees.  The honey won't go bad for the bees.