Why I Dont Overwinter With A super

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[@DavidDavis-pm6qz]

Our club bee rangler is gravitating to single brood hive management, and I am planning to use that as well. Mite treatment, queen location, and reduced area to heat all make sense for compact cluster size for over winter. Totally agree.

[@ProfessorBoswell]

Been keeping for 10 years, 70 colonies this year. I never tell people how to do things, but I like single or double deeps depending on the hive, feed lots of thick syrup in fall, treatments and just trusting the bees with their own stores placement. Thanks for all your videos, they're great! Cheers from Missouri USA.

[@hankbaker1614]

Yes, single brood box management simplifies inspections, treatments etc… Over wintering two brood boxes, the bottom box ends up empty the bees are in the top box and the bottom is not being guarded. Gives the bees to much space. Inspections are so much faster, able to assess and manage easier. Also if I have a hive that’s a little hot (mean) the smaller they are the less aggressive. If a hot hive gets to big it can be overwhelming to try to do inspections. If I’m concerned about food stores, I just make up some sugar bricks and place on top of the frames and a feeder shim and put the lid on. The moisture from the bees with the heat reaches the sugar brick absorbs excess moisture and at the same time softens the sugar brick. The sugar brick is directly above the cluster so no chance of starvation. Thanks for all your great videos, well done.

[@drumcdoo9050]

Fairly new to bee keeping, however finding using 12" x 14" National frames without supers with Varroa board on base on insulated hives with around 6R sides and 12R on top keeps bees warm and way ahead of conventional un-insulated traditional National hives. Use 4 Varroa strips draped over brood area, spaced every other frame sourced from NZ. Works wonders in keeping mites down to virtually zero. Finding very little stores are used and cleansing flights are happening as low as 6 degrees C with no build up of dead bees on hive floor or large tile situated at foot of hive.

[@deckyos]

Added empty boxes above brood, no frames no foundation. All now full of wild comb and packed with ivy. It meant loads of queen laying space while an extended Ivy flow here . I may remove these but ATM looking at leaving in place overwinter as it now stands

[@hypercriticalbrit]

I’ve been beekeeping for about 8 years now and very much find it depends on the colony. Some colonies I reduce down to a single brood box. Others I leave with a double brood box. The key if you’re going to double brood box is to place a super over the crown board and pack it out with 5 inches of reasonably dense polystyrene. I’ve done that for a while now and not only find the colonies are strong and need no feeding through winter, but they also come out the other side of winter far stronger which sets them ahead for the entire year and typically end up 2 or 3 times bigger than a colony which overwintered in just a single brood box.

[@arwyndavies1518]

It depends on the size of the colony, if it's a big one I would leave a super on with a queen excluder between them. small and medium sized colonies need to be in one box. top them all up with sugar syrup. I have not treated my colonies for varroa for nine years and they are fine. Thank you for the videos, they are always interesting.

[@tyrrells_honey]

My plan for this year is 4 weeks of Apiguard (thymol) treatment, 1:1 sugar syrup, 2:1 at the very end of the season and a block of bakers fondant in top of the crown board. Another mite treatment with oxalic acid in the winter. I am mainly using 10 frame poly Langstroth hives so never needed to bother with the super.

[@edwardalsup9673]

i condense down to one box after fall flow and feed them sugar.

[@jackson2uk]

@@user-ky9bt8rs4g The sugar syrup is a replacement for nectar not honey, two completely different products.

[@jandavis7374]

As a novice of two years, only after a lot of head scratching did I decide to nadir my then one only hive. Both seasons it has proved to be a success but I always ponder if it is, in fact, the right thing to do. I can only say, in my opinion, it does make treating the hive with Api Bioxal more effective and easier, and then of course any fondant is being placed directly on top the broad box which must be a plus for the bees. However, when reversing the nadir earlier this year did notice a small amount of mildew gathering on a couple of the empty super frames which I can only assume was due to damp conditions albeit the rest of the super frames and brood remained mildew free. Nevertheless, I am still pondering what to do this year!

[@jspeers1]

I agree with sugar is sugar, however winter isn’t always the same. 40 pounds would have been great last year but not all years. When you have a very warm January and bees break clusters and fly a lot and start brood only to have a very cold February and March they will consume a lot more resources, wintering in a shed solves that, but for me I leave xrtra resources for the possibility of a bad winter

[@BlackMountainHoney]

For us, it's always warm enough if they get light to top fondant on top of the cluster so overfeeding only has disadvantages. It's a massive pain when you get to spring and you are honey bound

[@parkinsonga3092]

I only have Black Bees, during the spring and summer they go Into National deep boxes with supers. Every August they send out a small swarm, once this has left I move the bees to a six frame poly nuc and feed sugar syrup. I've found that once the August swarm has gone it's basically season over and the colony drops down to the winter size.

[@themaverickbeekeeper]

As a first season Beekeeper, I am going for the double brood to winter the bees, treatment is APIVAR Strips 1 per 5 frames and has been on the colony for approximately 1 month already - the mite drop was significant. Although the remnant of Ivy is still about, I am trickle feeding with 1:1 syrup. The temperatures here in Scotland are plummeting, so I am going to the 2:1 APIMIX invert syrup feeding a little earlier than predicted. The colony is strong with the addition of adding more bees from my failed Nucleus Queen and supersedure late August. I am confident that the colony will overwinter well in a ABELO 12 Frame Poly Hive and signs are the bees are already in the top box and the Queen is laying. I will use Oxalic Acid Vaporisation in Early November to smash the remainder of the Mite load working around brood cycles and fickle temperatures to get maximum efficacy. End of October the Bakers Fondant will go on as a final feed regime.

[@BlackMountainHoney]

You are definitely on the ball. Nice timetable! :D

[@eddiemetall]

I started bee keeping last year with two colonies that I got at the end of June. I decided to leave the supers on and not harvest any honey in the first year. It seemed to me, in the face of a lot of contradictory advice, that leaving the bees with their honey was a good way of ensuring that new colonies survive the winter. I removed the queen excluders and left the supers on top. I can now see none of this was necessary and has created the problem Laurence mentions. Firstly, all the stores were used up by the end of December anyway and I fed fondant all through January and February. All of the fondant was taken. I stopped feeding at the beginning of March as I could see lots of foraging going on and I wanted to inspect to see the state of things inside but even before opening up the hives I decided not to leave the supers on next year. March, where I live in the north west of the UK, wasn't as warm as it might have been and I wasn't able to do a full inspection until 8th April. Both of my colonies are very strong and healthy, which is obviously a good thing, but I found brood in the supers and comb with brood in it built between the super and brood frames essentially fusing the two boxes together. It took me an hour to sort out the mess on my first hive. I wasn't able to sort out the second hive as I ran out of time due to needing to deal with other issues. Now the weather has changed again and we have high winds and storms forecast until the weekend so my second hive will have a further week of rogue development before I get to work on it. I saw enough in the look I did get at it to see it had the very same problems. The lesson I've learned is leaving supers on over winter causes too many problems and isn't necessary. I could have fed fondant all winter, harvested the honey and had no problems come spring.

[@inthewoods6857]

i allways leave them with super on.

[@KiwiWildman]

The terminology here in New Zealand seems to be different to yours. Here, a brood box has brood in it, and a super is for collecting honey. We run both deep and 3/4 supers and we run both deep and 3/4 brood boxes. I run all Langstroth hives. Most of my hives have two brood boxes, a 3/4 and a full depth box all year round. It gives some leeway in managing the hives in spring because the timing of feeding becomes less critical. Some of my hives winter over with the 3/4 on top, others with the deep on top. Either way works well. Queen excluders go above the brood boxes, so they are never between the deep and 3/4 brood boxes. As said in another comment, it also depends on the colony. My young hives that have only moved from a nuc to a 10 frame deep in the autumn winter over in that single deep box. The extra 3/4 brood box is added the following spring. I don't have any issues with the fact that the frames can't be moved from one box to the other. It is very common here among hobby beekeepers to run only 3/4 boxes, for brood (typically 3) and supers. The main advantage of that is they are lighter and easier to handle. But yes, once a 3/4 box has been used for brood, those frames are brood frames, and don't get used in supers. The same applies to deep frames where a beekeeper is running deep supers.

[@dcsblessedbees]

Great first point "it makes no difference what so ever" for the most part sugar is sugar. I'm in the process of balancing out all my colonies resources and pushing some down a box. I am leaving little extra honey this first season but stocking up on back as a back up. Ty for sharing your time and information, Blessed Days...

[@SKWDiesel1]

Key point for me is to remove the queen excluder. I also rotate any super by 90 degrees to allow easier access across the frames of stores.

[@castunes22]

Its my first year and I will nadir, harvest whats capped and feed them whats harvested. No sugar. I can consume the left overs in the spring when the bloom is back. 😊

[@BlackMountainHoney]

Nice strategy! Maybe a bit hard work for me but I like the thinking :D

[@jessicaemerson5010]

I run all mediums because I'm just a hobbyist and it's easier. I usually do 3 to overwinter. Winters are pretty unpredictable the last few years. It can be -10f and feet of snow or T-shirt weather all winter long.

[@davidsmith663]

I was going to leave a super of honey on my hives, but listening to this has changed my mind. We get a huge load of ivy here each year so will do as you suggest and removed and feed with sugar.

[@andyfox7372]

With you, all the way I don't leave supers on for winter. Stuff them full of syrup and back up with fondant.

[@DavidFrat123]

This is my first year- I'm doing single brood box. Currently feeding syrup, but will switch to fondant in the coming months. I have 3 drawn shallows with some nectar stored. Not sure if I should nadir them or just put them between the crown board and roof?

[@simoncollins917]

A related question - having Demaree’d my colonies earlier in the season I currently have double 14x12 Abelo 12 frame BB on each. It is best to condense into one BB, or is it ok to over winter with the two BB?

[@BlackMountainHoney]

If full of stores, just leave them on and you can make an even split in the winter. Its effectively double brood which is fine and you will find them up in the top box in spring which is a great draught free place for spring build up

[@simoncollins917]

@@BlackMountainHoney - thx Laurence, very helpful

[@TheBaconWizard]

Off-topic, but would you consider using a warre-hive and documenting the journey next year?

[@brianmorgan8950]

This has really upset the apple cart for me. In the past I have left a super for the bees, usually under the brood box. I am planning to do this again this winter but now ... Maybe I will try your suggestion of putting it under early and see if the bees move it up and then remove if before winter sets in.

[@harrycook1288]

a waste of good honey,take it off next year and give the £ 150 you saved to bees abroad,good luck next year

[@DocMartin54]

I agree that syrup can replace the sugar found in nectar albeit needing some processing by the bees unless you use invert syrup but that is another debate! Basic bee physiology depends on the Krebs cycle to release energy from the sugar. In turn the Krebs cycle require enzymes and vitamins for this process. I do wonder how they get the essential trace elements required for their basic physiology. Are they contained in nectar and hence been too ruthless may compromise their overall performance

[@BlackMountainHoney]

The key we have found is to do it early. We take the crop of honey around the first week of august in the middle/end of the flow. We dont just take all the honey and then leave them to rely solely on sugar for winter. The brood box already has a good proportion of natural honey stores in it, then they finish off the bramble and balsam flows, then they get ALL of the natural Ivy flows. They continue to forage for at least two months after we take the honey crop away and condense the boxes.

[@DocMartin54]

@@BlackMountainHoneyThank you for that reply. Although as you know I am new to this I am concerned about the ivy honey in that it appears renown for crystallisation. Is there anything you can do to ensure they can utilise those reserves apart from perhaps making sure they have plenty of water?

[@sjnealeservices8549]

If sugar is so good just keep feeding your bees with it all year.

[@magigale]

I took all the caped frames but left uncapped and fed sugar syrup. I’m fairly new to all this though so might experiment with this next year

[@teeky-rh9lz]

First winter having bees. Dont know what to do. Was told leave sooper on with honey. Is it better to feed. I put out sugar water for the last week and so many unwanted bees and ants showed up. To the point of I stopped feeding them. Will the wasp and Hornets and yellow jackets go away with the cold so me and the honey bees wont be bothered by them,

[@gadgetmansbees]

If you “put out” sugar water you will attract everyone and encourage robbing. Sugar syrup should only be fed from inside the hive so only the bees in that colony can access it.

[@teeky-rh9lz]

@@gadgetmansbees oh ok. I need to watch videos on how to properly do that. Thx

[@harrycook1288]

medicine works better in one box too

[@harrycook1288]

have you been reading my comments on facebook,, almost identical ,lol glad someone agrees with me.