winter help

[rgy]

I need to winterize my hives, one hive still has a honey super on it that has 4 frames half to three quarters full.  each frame is about half capped and half not capped. (I am ass-umming that they have the bottom brood boxes with winter supply of honey, I did not go that far down.) what do I do with this?  Freeze it and feed it back later? How do you do that, they are the smaller frames so won't they just make a mess building comb every where if I put the smaller frames in the bigger boxes?

should I just put it out and let the two hives robb it?

I checked them tues. and they were very active and bringing in very yellow pollen.  I doubt that there is any flow at all now in southwest mich.  42 parrellel.   

Night time temps low 40"s

[Scadsobees]

I didn't get much flow August and Sept, but now in Oct the asters have finally gotten going a bit.  That's where the smell comes from!!

As to your super...you can leave that on if you want, they'll eventually move up and then next spring start out with brood there and move down.

If that hive has enough in the rest of the hive, then yes, you can take it off, freeze it or let them rob it out.  If you let them rob it then all the hives in the area will participate in the spoils.  I do this, but I usually try to do this by August because the store from top down and I'd rather have the honey in the top of the brood boxes than in the top of the supers....

Rick

[rgy]

thanks Rick,  definetaly a smell!!!  I think I will go and look in the two brood boxes and see if they have stores.  If they do I will take and freeze, if not then they are going to have to heat a big house over winter.

bob

[AllenF]

Ya, check the brood boxes first to check how much honey they got.    Then you can feed it back to them or freeze it for later.   I kept several uncapped supers last year in the freezer for spring time.