Is it ok to take a frame of honey from broodbox

katuxini

Hello,
I am a newcomer to beekeeping. This is my first year. I have 2 hives with strong brood. I have a super on each hive but barely have 60% of one frame full of honey in each. I would like to take a frame of honey from each broodbox just to sample my own produce. Would this be ok.
In the next 10 days or so i plan to remove the supers and feed the bees syrup with 'hivealive' and treat for varroa. I am in the southwest and the bees are still busy collecting pollen. From what i can see its pale yellow and bright orange. I presume the pale yellow is from Ivey and the bright orange .. i don't know - heather?

The weather is still amazing so i have delayed preparing the hive for winter even though i was advised a month ago to take off the supers and feed the bees!

brianmc

katuxini wrote: »

Hello,
I am a newcomer to beekeeping. This is my first year. I have 2 hives with strong brood. I have a super on each hive but barely have 60% of one frame full of honey in each. I would like to take a frame of honey from each broodbox just to sample my own produce. Would this be ok.
In the next 10 days or so i plan to remove the supers and feed the bees syrup with 'hivealive' and treat for varroa. I am in the southwest and the bees are still busy collecting pollen. From what i can see its pale yellow and bright orange. I presume the pale yellow is from Ivey and the bright orange .. i don't know - heather?

The weather is still amazing so i have delayed preparing the hive for winter even though i was advised a month ago to take off the supers and feed the bees!

I don't think it would be a problem so long as you're going to make sure that they have plenty of stores (2 to 1 syrup) before the weather gets too bad.

If you take a brood frame out though, have you got a drawn frame of comb to put back in its place? They're unlikely to draw out a frame of foundation unless this weather keeps good for another couple of weeks. A frame of foundation is just cold space for them to keep over the winter. If you want to do it and don't have a drawn frame, use a dummy board to fill the space.

Depending on the amount of brood/stores in the brood box I'd probably take the supers off at this point and let them keep anything extra they get in the next while.

solargain

Why not just take off the queen excluder & leave the super with the bees for the winter , that way you will not have to feed. They need to be treated for varroa if you have not done so. The honey in those supers and that brood nest is packed with ivy, which has a strong taste. Take a super frame from each hive if you want to know what it tastes like ,( if its not gone hard already). The frames in the brood box had larvae pupate in them ,and when that happens they also excrete in the cell. The honey is now packed in on top of those cells in the brood box.
Why take the frames now and feed when they already have enough to overwinter with the super upstairs

brianmc

solargain wrote: »

Why not just take off the queen excluder & leave the super with the bees for the winter , that way you will not have to feed. They need to be treated for varroa if you have not done so. The honey in those supers and that brood nest is packed with ivy, which has a strong taste. Take a super frame from each hive if you want to know what it tastes like ,( if its not gone hard already). The frames in the brood box had larvae pupate in them ,and when that happens they also excrete in the cell. The honey is now packed in on top of those cells in the brood box.
Why take the frames now and feed when they already have enough to overwinter with the super upstairs

I think the OP is saying that their supers are practically empty... 60% of one frame...

Time to abandon the supers IMO and let the bees work in a smaller, warmer space, getting themselves ready for winter.

Joe Brennan

Very good advice given

solargain

I don't know what part of the country the poster is in but there is a massive slow of ivy on at the moment here. I had to give some hives more space to store the ivy during the week . I would be slow to take any extra super off right now until the weather breaks . I had bees drawing brace comb in feeders this week because they were out of storage space.

brianmc

solargain wrote: »

I don't know what part of the country the poster is in but there is a massive slow of ivy on at the moment here. I had to give some hives more space to store the ivy during the week . I would be slow to take any extra super off right now until the weather breaks . I had bees drawing brace comb in feeders this week because they were out of storage space.

I know what you're saying. Adding my second trays of apiguard involved a lot of mess clearing some space in the stuffed ekes...

But if the OP's bees have only 2/3 of one frame drawn out in a month, in the current conditions, I don't imagine it's actually a very strong colony. I would be surprised to hear that they fill out the super.

Different perceptions of the colony I guess.

katuxini

Thanks for all the advice.
I am in the southwest and there seems to be alot of ivy pollen being collected at the moment. As the weather looks to be getting cooler towards the weekend, i plan to take a frame of capped honey from the broodbox. I don't have any drawn frames at the moment so i guess i would be better off putting in a 'dummy frame'. The only reason i am taking a frame is to have some of my own honey from the first year.
I will then feed the bees and treat for varroa and remove super.
I have heard that local beekeepers leave a super on for the winter as the bees continue to bring ivy through october a this provides feed for the winter.
I haven't checked my hive in 2 weeks so it will be interesting to see if there is any development with the frames in my super!