Spring supers

[leonotron]

So I decided to add super on top of the brood box in case my bees needed space. Plan was to have some newspaper to separate the brood box and super and they could move up when they needed. When I lifted the crown board there were bees on all the frames and sealed stores front and back. They even had comb built between the frames and the crown board with honey stored in it. I ended up just adding the super without the paper. The super is all foundation so I added a feeder with 1:1 sugar syrup.
Did I do the right thing? Will they free up some more space below now?
I didn't want to do an inspection as I thought it was too early to be disturbing them that much. Should I have any worry about a swarm? Queen isn't clipped and unmarked.

 

[jp19sqn]

Hi Leo
Depends what you are trying to achieve. If you are looking to go onto double brood to get a beefier colony then you might have waited until the box is bursting with bees. There are no drones about yet so the swarm risk is very low. Then put a feeder with a very light syrup on to get a new brood box drawn. But if you are staying on single brood I would have waited a week or so to get more bees to keep the extra space warm and slapped an undrawn super on and let the OSR flow be the energy for them drawing it out. What you have done will work though, cat skinning and all that.

 

[itma]

Not really a good idea to feed when there is a crop super on the hive (unless you want to boost your sales by bottling syrup).



Getting new boxes of new frames with foundation drawn can be difficult.
Lots of possibilities, the usual first thing is to remove the QX for a week or so.
Personally, I advise removing a brood frame with stores and replacing it (for a few days) with a shallow frame. Once the new frame is even partly drawn and replaced in the shallow box, it will draw the bees up into the otherwise-new box.

 

[Heather]

I would never feed once adding a super. They have enough food in brood and what they are bringing in to draw new foundation.
If putting on undrawn foundation, leave the QE out for 1 week to encourage them up with no barriers. She wont go up. Once they are up there building comb put a QE in.

 

[beeno]

Hi leonotron,
I think, at the earliest appropriate time weatherwise, you need to have a good luck to determine exactly what room the queen has to lay, exact store situation and how many bees you actually have in there. Box not brimming with bees and by supering too early you may set them back. Good luck.

 

[leonotron]

I took another quick look this evening but didn't want to disturb them too much. They have started to draw out four of the frames and one is nearly fully drawn out. They have also taken down 75% of the 5L of syrup I put on yesterday. I'll take a proper look this weekend if the weather is in my favour. Thanks for all the helpful replies.

 

[leonotron]

Just to respond to a couple of comments above as well, I don't really plan on selling any of the honey. OSR isn't an option for me either as there's none within foraging distance of my hive.

 

[Arfermo]

Hi Leo
Depends what you are trying to achieve. If you are looking to go onto double brood to get a beefier colony then you might have waited until the box is bursting with bees. There are no drones about yet so the swarm risk is very low. Then put a feeder with a very light syrup on to get a new brood box drawn. But if you are staying on single brood I would have waited a week or so to get more bees to keep the extra space warm and slapped an undrawn super on and let the OSR flow be the energy for them drawing it out. What you have done will work though, cat skinning and all that.

Got drones aplenty in one of my brood and a half hives which is bursting with BIAS top and bottom and so much stored honey I have removed two frames for later use. It now now has a super. Others coming on slowly.