Seven supers? (TBRNoTB's question)

TBRNoTB said:

... as a newbie I was wondering why you needed to keep seven supers one one hive? It was obviously a strong colony but.....any longer and he would need a ladder!

Click to expand...

I've asked this as a question here, on behalf of TBRNoTB, separating if from the Queens, DCA thread. I hope that's okay

The video is this one
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DwBulJzKBM[/ame]

I hope Finman answers this one.

I almost went to sleep waiting for something to happen but did notice the brood box was askew and might have a gap big enough to let in wasps to help empty his supers more efficiently.

only a couple seem full of frames - several have varying amounts of packing in them.

good practice - supers stacked in front of hive entrance.

lots of smoke - mmmm. smokey honey.


honey farmers will have big stacks as they only take off the once - ged marshall has a lovely pic of a (poor performing) hive with 2 supers being used as a step to reach the top of a stack of 11 supers on a (well performing) hive.

don't much fancy taking any of the top three off when full of honey.

Best have St. John's Ambulance on standby

drstitson said:

only a couple seem full of frames - several have varying amounts of packing in them.

good practice - supers stacked in front of hive entrance.

lots of smoke - mmmm. smokey honey.

honey farmers will have big stacks as they only take off the once - ged marshall has a lovely pic of a (poor performing) hive with 2 supers being used as a step to reach the top of a stack of 11 supers on a (well performing) hive.

Click to expand...

The top box was an empty commercial super, the next box was a 3/4 full national super. The other supers were all commercial supers and pretty much full.

Lots of smoke on sealed stores ... smokey honey.. um I think not. The objective is to keep the bees under control and commercial supers are heavy when full. The camera does not show how overcast the day was but the flying bees and smoke do stand out well.

No big gap under brood box. Although the floor is slightly askew it's a national floor under a commercial brood box so although it's slightly askew there are no gaps for wasps to enter.

It's not the most exciting video I've seen!

Sorry if that's the case, the file size was rather large and it was the first time I'd tried uploading a video to you tube.

SMOKE.....I dont use as much smoke as that in a week!!!!!...half a puff in the entrance or on some just a drift of smoke in, half a puff under the crown and perhaps on reassembly just a small puff under a crowded super to drive them up and so i can reasamble faster without crushing

i would have extract the first supers before it reached 7 high

I agree, way too much smoke (imo).
It almost seemed habitual rather than actually needed the way he is doing it, a trap we can all fall into without taking the time to step back and ask if we need that much. I started out ritually using the stuff as a matter of course before realising I needed hardly any, and often none.