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Author Topic: honey supers.  (Read 2537 times)

Offline T.Smith

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honey supers.
« on: March 19, 2009, 10:55:32 pm »
Hello, This is my 3rd year with keeping bees. Last year I had about 14 production hives with double deeps and also had 2 deep honey supers for each hive with drawn comb. Anyway I am getting ready to super my hives but now I have grown to about 25 production hives with double deeps and they are strong and ready for supers but I need to draw some wax out to catch up with my increase. Anyway what I am asking is should I put foundation only on some and drawn comb on some or should I mix it up. I just want to maximize my honey take and get the rest of my supers drawn out. thanks

Offline Carl F

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Re: honey supers.
« Reply #1 on: March 20, 2009, 10:31:21 am »
Personally I would mix the foundation in about two frames per super but I have even less experience than you do in terms of time and number of hives.  I'll be curious to see what others suggest.  Are all of your bees the same race and in the same yard?  Have any hives exhibited stronger comb building than the others?
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Offline Two Bees

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Re: honey supers.
« Reply #2 on: March 20, 2009, 10:57:17 am »
Thanks for the info.  I may be overly concerned but I know that the girls are really beginning to crank it up and I want to either remove the medicated super and replace it on the hive with another medium with foundation before the first nectar flow.

Interesting thing about the bees moving the medicated syrup/honey around in the hive.  If they have stored some of the medicated stuff in the two brood chambers, wouldn't they move it around anytime this spring and possibly place the medicated honey in the this year's honey supers?
 
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Offline Michael Bush

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Re: honey supers.
« Reply #3 on: March 20, 2009, 06:43:19 pm »
If you mix them put all the drawn together and the undrawn together.  Don't intersperse them.  Otherwise they will draw the drawn comb deeper and ignore the foundation.
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Offline IABeeMan

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Re: honey supers.
« Reply #4 on: March 22, 2009, 11:19:41 am »
 Leave the drawn frames all together. They will fill these frames alot quicker than you think. If you mix them you will get irregular drawn frames. The ones that are already drawn will be added to at the same rate that they draw the new ones. So you end up with the old ones drawn out alot more and the new ones will not be drawn out much. Mixing them up will not speed up the drawing process any.

Offline asciibaron

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Re: honey supers.
« Reply #5 on: March 23, 2009, 01:45:40 pm »
If you mix them put all the drawn together and the undrawn together.  Don't intersperse them.  Otherwise they will draw the drawn comb deeper and ignore the foundation.

i spent about 15 minutes yesterday trying to sort out a solution to just this problem.  my solution was to ignore it ;)

Offline JD

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Re: honey supers.
« Reply #6 on: March 28, 2009, 11:33:23 am »
I know we're talking about honey supers and getting the foundation drawn out. This question lead me to about adding or replacing combs in the brood nest. I thought you would mix up or alternate the foundation between brood combs? Not to change the subject, just seemed like a good place to add this.             JD

Offline Michael Bush

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Re: honey supers.
« Reply #7 on: March 28, 2009, 03:38:39 pm »
In the brood nest this works as all combs are the same thickness.  Just don't spread the brood out more than they can easily fill the gaps with festooning bees to keep the brood warm and draw the comb.
My website:  bushfarms.com/bees.htm en espanol: bushfarms.com/es_bees.htm  auf deutsche: bushfarms.com/de_bees.htm  em portugues:  bushfarms.com/pt_bees.htm
My book:  ThePracticalBeekeeper.com
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"Everything works if you let it."--James "Big Boy" Medlin