When to Add Super to Beehive - Delayed supers and continue feeding? What time is best?

Hi, I'm Laurence Edwards from Black Mountain Honey. Welcome to another episode of No Nonsense Beekeeping. We're at the River Apiary today and we're adding supers to our very big strong colonies. So it's the middle of April here. We've held off for such a long time putting the supers on. I always want to get my supers on kind of first, second week of April at the absolute latest because my colonies are big. But it's totally weather dependent. And I made the mistake last year of putting the supers on too early, and it meant that I couldn't feed my colony. So I had to go back round, take the supers back off, which is a real pain 'cause they're full of bees. You've got to start shaking them all out again. It just adds that work on. So just what I want to show you in this video is the impact of delaying putting supers on your colonies over here, particularly with a Buckfast bee. I've got other colonies in other apiaries that I don't have this issue with, and they're not a Buckfast bee, and they're a lot more frugal with their stores, so they don't need fondant being added on. And because these colonies need fondant being added on, they've taken that as an excuse to start drawing comb in the feeders, which is frustrating because it means that I've probably left it a little bit too late to put the supers on. But I always like to err on the side of caution because the last thing I want is to put the supers on and for it to then be too cold for the bees to go out, forage any nectar, and then they starve. That for me is worst case scenario. I'd much prefer to deal with some comb in the feeder than to end up with a dead colony. So that's what I'm going to show you in this video. I'm going to show you the impacts of delaying putting supers on your colonies and what you can end up with if you feed them like I do with an upturned feeder. I'll show you just how much comb they've put into these feeders here. And then I'm just going to stick a couple of supers on each of these colonies as well, 'cause I'm expecting a bumper crop here in North Wales. And in case you didn't get that, that was a joke. We never get bumper crops in North Wales. So the reason I'm putting 2 supers on This apiary's a bit further away. I might not be able to get here as often as I would like. So we're clipping queens in this apiary. We're gonna go for 2 supers straight away 'cause the bees really do need the space. So I'll get my bee suit on and I'll show you what I mean. So I've been through all of the colonies in this apiary now. This is without a doubt the worst one in this apiary. It's huge. They've filled that feeder with lots of comb. I've left it too late to put the supers on, so I'm gonna show you how to fix that now. And as always, No Nonsense Beekeeping, it's a really quick, Simple fix. I'll run through all of the steps, show you how to fix it. So the first thing to note when you're coming and doing this is you need to be very, very gentle. The queen could be up in that top feeder. You're going to have to break some of that comb. So it's good to have like a bucket or something that you can collect it with. But just be wary when you're lifting stuff off, you are going to break it. Do not kill the queen or try your best not to kill the queen and just try and keep your eye open for her as well. Quite nice to be able to see the queen in this manipulation. So just keep your eyes peeled. So as you can see, this is the problem that we've got here. We fed them fondant. The box was light, so I wasn't willing to risk them going on the stores that they had because I know with Buckfast they can burn through it very, very quickly. So I've added fondant on, and I've probably added a little bit too much fondant on. And I am guilty of that sometimes, but I prefer to deal with this issue here than deal with a colony that's starving. So what you've got here is a big 14 by 12 box full of brood, loads of bees. You've got drones in there as well, brood in all stages on the frames, big slabs of fondant on the top, comb that they've drawn, so natural wild comb on top of the feeder and, and in the feeder as well. I need to find the queen, so the first thing I'm going to do is try and find that queen. The first place I'm going to look for her is in this box down here. She could be up there, so don't knock that over. You don't want the queen flying around on the floor or going in the grass. First thing I'm going to do is just clean this up a little bit, make it easier to work. So what we're doing here is we want to look for the queen, and the reason we want to look for the queen is the prime objective here is to put the supers on the colony. We've left it too late. When you're putting the supers on the colony, it's the simplest manipulation in the world. There's only one thing that can really go wrong, and that is you put the queen above the queen excluder. It's a queen excluder. You want her to remain downstairs In the brood box. So you need to find her. Like, it's a real schoolboy error just to say, right, the queen's going to be in the brood box, let me get my queen excluder, I'll just put it on, stack the supers up. Oh, I've got loads of bees up there, I'll just shake them upstairs into the super. Sod's law, the queen's going to be in there, isn't she? So you just need to go through methodical. I'm going to go through all the frames here. It's about 14 or 15 degrees here today, even though it's quite late in the day, so it's absolutely fine to get in here, try and find that queen. Got a lot of bees here, they're going to be keeping that brood nice and warm. So I'm going to go through each of the frames one by one. Hopefully I've got my eye in and hopefully I'll find that queen really, really quickly. So that frame there, well worth having a look at because it just goes to show my hefting skills were terrible this year. You've got a full frame of 14 by 12 there, so I didn't need to put that much fondant on. Again, I always kind of tend to go for a bit of an insurance policy with the fondant because I hate it when the bees die and they starve. But big frame of feed there, so I didn't need to put too much on. Bit of a learning lesson for me, I guess, for next year. I'm going to shake them off this one though. And then what's really good to see on this frame here, perfect indication that these guys are ready for a super, lots of nectar in the frames. Now I'm not going to shake this one because you're going to get loads of nectar that comes out. So the bees have been out today collecting loads of nectar, they're backfilling the brood box, which is a bad thing this time of year. So the timing is very good to get a queen excluder on and get a super on. And I'll probably have to take out a couple of these honey-bound frames, replace them with some foundation. Helps to reduce the swarming impulse, gives the queen a little bit extra space to lay as well. Really good to see though, very, very mature colony. Lots of drones running all over the frames. Really good to see. Still no sign of the queen. Brood in all stages on this frame. A little queen cup as well, nothing to be worried about, no egg in it. Even eggs in queen cups I'm not too worried about at this time of year. Looking for big charged cells, that's a sure sign they're going to swarm early. And then we're straight into big 14 by 12 frames of brood. Really, really nice pattern on this colony. These are going to boom over the next few weeks. Big 14 by 12 frames of brood, that's going to create a lot of bees once they come out and they emerge. Still no sign of the queen though. Right, so I've been through every single frame in the colony. Getting a little bit touchy now, um, but still can't find the queen. So I'm gonna have a look up in the feeder and see if she's there. The fact they're getting a little bit touchy down there, don't look too bad up there. So I'm hoping that's the reason that they're getting a little bit grumpy, because I've taken their queen away from them. So I'm going to take a look in the feeder now. I said it'd be sod's law, didn't it? The queen's in the feeder. Nice. Big blue marked queen. I found her up here, and that explains why she was grumpy down there. So this is why I wanted to do this video. It's not set up at all. I didn't know whether she was going to be in there or in here. I spent twenty minutes looking through because I thought she'd be down there, and she's up in the feeder. So that is the hardest bit over now. All you need to do is get the queen, put her back into the box down there, get your queen excluder on, put your supers on. And I recommend taking a piece of comb if you're not comfortable just picking the queen up. To get her to go onto the comb, you can just drop her in. So there she is on there. Bee's making a big fuss of her, and you can just let her go back into her colony. She'll go straight down into the frames. Keep an eye on where she is. You want to push the frames up so you're not going to squish her. And then it's really, really simple. All you're doing is you're just putting all of your frames back together again. So bee's getting a little bit grumpy with me now. Really, really quick, simple manipulation now. The queen's downstairs. Get your queen excluder on, super on top, and then I'm going to put another super on top as well. This is a big, big colony with lots of brood. I want to give it sufficient space. So this year in this apiary, I'm going up with 2 supers at a time. We'll see how we get on with that. And then now that you know that the queen is safely down there, it's so much easier to deal with the comb in the top box. But any loose comb, you can just take that out. Again, store that somewhere nice. That's really good quality beeswax. And then you can be a little bit more aggressive like this, and you just wanna shake 'em in. I know some people don't like it, but you can be here shaking bees in for a long time. So I'm just giving 'em a little tap just to dislodge them. And that is pretty much all of the bees out of the feeder then. And then for me, I use my feeders as my crown board. So feeder goes back on top like that, and then the roof can go back on. So that's the manipulation complete. And I just wanted to show you that specific colony there I've talked to you a little bit about the timings for putting the first super on, and if you've got fondant to deal with as well, the potential feeder issues with drawing comb up there. What I've done here is I've cleared out all of the comb within the feeder. I've found the queen, I've put the queen downstairs, queen excluder, 2 supers on. Hopefully over the next couple of weeks, these guys are going to break out loads of that brood, start to fill up the super with bees, and then when the flow hits towards the back end of April, early May, these guys should be really well prepared to bring in a really nice crop. So there you go, that is the impact of delaying putting supers on your colonies. You can see some of those colonies there, they've got 3 or 4 packets, empty packets of fondant, where they've just been pounding away on that fondant. They've taken the liberty of turning that into comb, and they're putting that comb in the feeder because they see it as additional space, and they see that they've got enough food to be able to do that. What I've shown you though is how to deal with that, how to make sure the queen's back downstairs in the brood box, putting the queen excluder on, putting the supers on, actually getting ready for the season once you've delayed it a little bit. So I hope you found that video useful. I hope you enjoyed it. Really nice to be back out here on the bees. Absolutely love this apiary, love the honey that comes out of it, and I'm just really excited for the beekeeping season to get started. So as always, please hit the subscribe button, please hit the bell so you're notified of every video. And I'll see you next time. Bye.