When To Add a Super To Your Beehive

Hi, I'm Laurence Edwards from Black Mountain Honey. Welcome to another episode of No Nonsense Beekeeping. Today I'm going to show you when to add a super to your hive. So there are lots of different ways of adding supers to your hive. The timing is critical. You can do it in a number of different ways though. A lot of people over-super, as in they put more supers on than they actually need to, and that can be a really, really good strategy. Like, I've got an apiary I'm actually at an apiary here today that I don't get to visit as often as I'd like because it's a bit further away. So if I was going to put a super on, I'd put 2 supers on, and there are negative effects that come with that, i.e., the cavity that the bees are going to be working in is going to be bigger than they're suited for. But at this time of the year when it's warm, you can kind of manage that a little bit. But if these are bees in your garden or these are bees that you manage Every single week, then you want to add one super at a time, and that's the really, really good way of doing it. So for the purpose of this video, I will show you that method, and that's it. It's going to be a really, really simple video. My rule of thumb is once the brood box is full by 80% of the frames, then you add your super. Now, some people go all the way, and I really, really don't like going all the way because what happens is if you open the box up and you've got 100% of the frames filled, it's highly, highly likely that the outer 2 frames are going to be honey. That's just the way that bees set up their nests, so they have honey on the outer edges and then they come in and then they have kind of a mixture of brood and pollen. It tends to go honey, pollen, brood. It doesn't always work like that, but the outer frames very, very often, nearly always I would say, are going to be honey. So if you leave it that long, You run the risk of swarming because as soon as they— as soon as those outer frames are honey-bound, they will work that honey inwards and they'll restrict that nest. And then the colony will sense that there's not enough space, and then they'll signal for that queen to go and lay an egg in a queen cup, and then they'll go and swarm. So I like to do it a bit of a safety net, do it at 80% coverage of the frames. So when you look in, if you've got a standard 10-frame, that's just 8 frames covered with bees. Now you can do it on 7, you can do it on 9. My rule of thumb is 8. So So the question I get a lot from people is, why aren't my bees moving up into the super? And I'd say 9 times out of 10, the answer to that question is there's not enough bees in the colony to get them to move up to the super. So you see it a lot, you put the super on, you go back a week later, 2 weeks later, and you're expecting maybe the bees to have drawn out the comb, or at least to have moved up to it and kind of give it some attention. They really, really won't do that until there's massive congestion downstairs. And if you're putting— if you have those honey-bound frames on the edges, the bees just go and store the honey there. So what you need to do if you've got honey-bound frames is get your hive tool, bruise all of that honey stores, and put it back in, and then put your super on. And that hopefully gets the bees to move those stores upwards. The best way to get the bees moving up into the super is to use drawn comb. They much prefer drawn comb to foundation. So So yeah, if you've got drawn comb, use all drawn comb. If you haven't got all drawn comb, try and get 1 or 2 pieces of drawn comb in the middle of that box, and that should help attract them up, and then they'll start to expand outwards like that. If you haven't got any drawn comb at all and you're using all foundation, you just need to be aware that, I mean, they're not going to move up there and draw out that foundation unless they need to or unless they want to. And the only way they're going to do that is either if there's a flow Or if you simulate a flow, so if you feed. I'm really not a massive fan of feeding with supers on. I don't necessarily see the need for it. The reason you're putting supers on is to capture the nectar that's coming in from a flow. That's the only real reason for me for putting supers on. So if you put the supers on and it's just drawn foundation, you should only really be putting them on in a flow anyway. So I don't like feeding to get the drawn comb out. I know other people do, and you can do it, do you know what I mean? If you just kind of set it up so you've got your brood box, queen excluder, super, and then your feeder on top, and you're just giving them kind of tiny little bits, and you're monitoring it, and they're taking it down, and they're using it to draw comb, they're not using it to store anywhere, then I don't see a problem with it, and it works well. The way that I set up my bees though, it's not practical to do that. I'd have to kind of keep on going and checking every colony every other day pretty much to see If they're using that syrup to store or if they're using it to draw. So let's get the hood on and we're gonna have a look at the bees. You'll see I've got the GoPro as well today, so we'll do a couple of close-ups, have a look at some of the frames as well. So this is my river site. This is the new river apiary. It's a really, really beautiful apiary. Hoping to target some of the late Himalayan balsam flows here. So I've got all the packages here and we're building them up. It's kind of middle of June at the moment. We're targeting those kind of early to middle of July balsam flows. Not sure what time they're going to come this year. Hopefully it'll kind of come a little bit later, to be honest, because these guys still need to build up a little bit. But some of the colonies here are ready for a super, so I thought I'd do this video today. So this is the colony we're going to look at. It's on a 14 by 12 brood box, and as you can see It's covering about 80% of those frames. Now some people would say wait, wait a little bit longer with that one, but I don't get to visit this apiary as often as I like. Once I hit that 80% mark, the supers go on. There's no risk for me here that it's going to chill any of the brood, like it's a really nice warm site, the weather forecast is good, they've got adequate stores, so it's a safe move to put that super on. So you can see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. There's 8 frames of bees, maybe 7 and a half. Um, but I mean, that, that's what you're looking for. Don't, don't wait until that box is completely jammed full of bees, because what will happen is you'll put the super on and, and they're— they can swarm on you. Um, you're much less likely to kind of develop swarming habits if you put the super on a little bit early. So like I say, rule of thumb, 80%, that's what I go for. And, uh, ready to place the super on this colony now. So when you're placing the super on the colony, like I say, always try and get a piece of drawn comb, even if it's one like this that's just been kind of partially drawn out, that will do. And you want to place that in the middle of your super, and then using Hoffman-style frames, make sure the spacing is correct. And then put it on the hive. Obviously don't forget your queen excluder. So with this apiary here, like I said, I don't get to come down here that often, so I'm going to put a second super on. And I wouldn't advise you to do this if you're in your garden I mean, the same rule applies. Yeah, so if you were going to come back here, I'd do your weekly inspections, and you want to wait until you see 80% of bees in the super, and then you can place your next super on. And then that way, the kind of the cavity that you're creating is fit for the bees, and that's what you're looking to do. That's the most optimum way of managing your bees. However, as I'm at this apiary and it's really, really out of the way, and I don't get to come to it as often as I would like, I'm going to place another super on now, and that buys me a little bit of time in terms of swarming. It buys me a little bit of time in terms of, terms of if there's a super incredible flow and they fill up this super in a couple of weeks— sorry, if they fill up this super in a week and then they haven't got space to build another one. What I don't want them to do, worst case scenario for me here, is they reach the top of the hive, they fill it with honey, they start to build down, build the honey nest down, Into the brood area, the brood area constricts, and then they swarm, so I lose my bees. That's not what I want. I can take less than optimum performance because the cavity is a bit too big, so I'm going to add another super. Same thing applies if you've got some drawn comb, great, use all drawn comb. If you haven't, place one in the middle But I mean, that box is more important to get them to move through that queen excluder. Once you've got them through the queen excluder, that's the battle pretty much won, and then you can just keep on adding those supers as that colony grows. Like I say, 80%, that's the rule you're always looking for. So if you've got a 10-frame box, 8 frames. If you've got an 11-frame box, 8 or 9 frames. It really doesn't make a massive difference. Don't get too, too caught up on the numbers. You want to see ideally that outer frames not used, and then that buys you a little bit of time. That's the rule of thumb that I use.