When To Add A Super To My Beehive

When To Add A Super To My Beehive
In this video I show you how much space bees need and when to add supers to your colony to ensure they have enough space to store nectar.
When to add super or how to add super is a common question in beekeeping. In this video I show you the best time to add a honey super to your colony to ensure the bees always have enough space to store nectar.
Adding honey supers too soon is better than adding honey supers too late. You need to stay ahead of the bees or they will backfill the brood box with nectar and they can then become honey bound.
Honey bound brood box is the best way to get your colony to swarm then they wont put honey in the supers.
You may wonder how many supers per hive is required for the season and this depends on how many crops you are likely to take. We try to work around 5 supers per colony but this sometimes requires a mid season extraction in order to free up space in the honey supers.
When supering up beehives, we aim to add the next box when the previous box is 80% full of bees. This should stop the colonies brood box from becoming honey bound.
What is a honey super and where to do bees store honey? If you are asking yourself these questions, then watch this video as I give you the answers in the first 10 mins.
Giving bees space by adding supers to a beehive helps to reduce the chances of colonies swarming.
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Thanks for watching. Please give us a thumbs up if you enjoyed the video.

[@briantoner2215]

That was great. No nonsense. Straight to the point and educational at the same time

[@BlackMountainHoney]

A ringing endorsement for No Nonsense Beekeeping! :D Thanks Brian

[@ThoseCrazyrivers]

Great video, very informative....nice to have a decent UK beekeeper video to watch with all that our conditions entail.

[@BlackMountainHoney]

Thanks very much! Glad you are enjoying the videos!

[@soulfate2]

Nice work.. cool about the 80% covering -having the brood nest nice and warm +the flow on its way.. all should be ok .. greets from New Zealand brother!

[@geraltofrivia8529]

Im under the impression "under supering" is placing fresh supers closest to the brood box, encouraging bees into that first so they can draw comb whilst still filling the top box, also making removal of the full super easier if you extract once they've filled it.

[@funkqueen69]

Thanks for this really informative

[@enjoynaturehoney]

Love the video🙂👍

[@woodsfriendlygarden2190]

Great content you have presented

[@BlackMountainHoney]

Thanks. Glad you enjoyed it!

[@abfielding1903]

Thanks for the videos, really helpful. I have a colony that is in a standard Brood box with a super. This was a swarm from early July. The brood chamber is packed solid with brood And stores. I’ve added a super and they have moved up drawn comb and started to fill. I’ve added some syrup to assist in drawing the comb. Do I need to maybe go to 14x12 frames or was I just to late with the super? I do need to change 5 frames from the brood chamber as well but they get so angry when I inspect.. tips please.

[@jamescross5058]

Another excellent video! My dad and I are finding them really helpful in our first foray into beekeeping. We hived our nuc a month ago and they are filling out the brood box nicely. We were wondering that if our bees have hit that 80% mark you mention but it is nearing autumn should we risk putting a super on that late in the year or wait until next spring/summer? Do you have a cutoff time in the year for putting supers on hives?

[@BlackMountainHoney]

No harm in adding a super this late. You may be surprised. You can always remove if they don't touch it.

[@mathiaspeter4409]

I will follow that advice

[@mathiaspeter4409]

Hi thanks for the vidéo. We are beginning of September in NY state and flow is good. My bees are in 2 deeps and the top one has 2 frames left before being honey bound. Can I still add a super or how do I prevent swarming? Is it too late for a super (not drown)? Thank you

[@heathersullivan4853]

Great video, thanks v m. How do I decide how long to leave the supers before harvesting honey?

[@BlackMountainHoney]

Majority of the honey should be capped or you can double check the moisture content with a refractometer

[@eastsussexbeesandwildlife5801]

Thanks for all the videos Laurence, really great and informative. I have kept a few colonies for some time now in East Sussex and am of course still learning. As a matter of interest, do you leave a super on over winter, if so do you leave the excluder on. I use National boxes. Thanks again. Peter

[@BlackMountainHoney]

Glad you are enjoying them Peter. I never leave the supers on overwinter but if i did, i would nadir around August and remove the excluder. If they are well fed, they should be fine in a single national

[@eastsussexbeesandwildlife5801]

Laurence.Thanks so much for this advice. I am having an interesting season so far. I had a very large swarm arrive in one of my bait hives at the end on 24 April, I dont know where it came from, but it built up very quickly but unfortunately swarmed on 26th June ago, the swarm went into another of my bait hives, but absconded about an hour later just before I was going to put it into a brood box. Yesterday I had a good look in the brood box, no queen but several sealed queen cells, so have split this colony in two. I guess they are a swarming type, but they are friendly and at least only got stung once, but not on the face which I know is your speciality! Regards. Peter

[@nice2nettles]

Thanks for the video. What about this time of year? I have two colonies that were united with other colonies 4 weeks ago (the two original colonies were queenless & struggling). Now the brood boxes are completely full. I added a super of foundation to each a couple of weeks ago, but they didn't touch them so I took them off. Should I have left them on, or is it too late for them to think about drawing comb? Not for honey for me, but in case they need more room for winter stores? My friend runs her hives at brood & a half and swears by it. Thanks

[@BlackMountainHoney]

We condense all colonies down to a single box for winter. Not a fan of brood and a half, especially over winter.

[@barriescott4523]

Love your videos..like you say no nonsense. Can I ask you a question. When you are adding an extra super, what is your view on where you place them..below or above the existing super and what if it is just a super full of foundation. Does that have any bearing on where you place it. Many thanks

[@BlackMountainHoney]

Hi Barrie. Glad you are enjoying the videos. It really doesnt make a huge amount of difference. If the bees need the space, they will work frames above and below the existing super. If its all foundation, probably best to go under as it will mean its a bit warmer for wax drawing and forces them to access it to get to the other super.

[@barriescott4523]

@@BlackMountainHoney thank you, we have had this discussion in the club a few times and as you can guess a different answer everytime 🙂

[@BlackMountainHoney]

@@barriescott4523 Yeah. Its one of those. Everyone gets a point rounds! ;)

[@TimoAbraham]

Great video ... whats that crop behind you

[@BlackMountainHoney]

Its grass! 😉

[@g8rgrl13]

learning so much from your channel, just went to your website, do you sell shirts. would love to support you from the US

[@BlackMountainHoney]

thank you. I'm glad you find the channel useful. we dont sell any merch im afrajd but we do offer channel memberships. you can join on the homepage if you are interested :)

[@haiybo]

How close together can you put hives, Lawrence?

[@BlackMountainHoney]

I have hives that are literally touching. You will get drift between colonies but they dont mind being really close to each other. Better to keep them at least a working distance away though. Couple of metres is ideal.

[@haiybo]

@@BlackMountainHoney thank you

[@norfolkhoneybee273]

Do you use deeps for honey or just supers?

[@BlackMountainHoney]

We use both. Probably 50/50 split

[@norfolkhoneybee273]

@@BlackMountainHoney with the deeps you use for honey,do you use for a couple of years or so and then use on brood boxes or just melt.

[@BlackMountainHoney]

@@norfolkhoneybee273 We do both. Most of them started life as super frames.

[@guangyizhu5232]

9:36

[@markteel7548]

What are you doing about ants?

[@zimbiajames3891]

Love your knowledge 💯 whats your number?