Question about supering

[cao]

I was out in the bee yard playing with my bees and had a question.  I have a 5 over 5 nuc(medium frame) that needs more room. I was wondering should I put the next box on top or on bottom.  I am in no hurry to move them into 8 or 10 frame equipment yet.  May do that near the end or summer.  I was just curious as to what others would do and why.  Btw they were packed wall to wall bees with some hanging out on the front porch.

[gww]

I should be in a derth right now but I did put my last few boxes of comb on my hives.  I doubt they do much with them but could if something bloomed and worst case (except making it harder to guard from robbing) is they will clean/guard the comb and come September I can remove them and if they are not full just feed it back to the bees.  I am not saying this is right but just how I handled it.
Good luck
gww

[Michael Bush]

On top it's easy to see if it's being used or it's empty.  On the bottom it requires moving all the boxes to put it on, and moving all the boxes to see if it's full.  Other than that, bottom is probably better... but not that much better.

[Oldbeavo]

MB is sort of right about ease of operating to put the new super on top, but if the bees fill the new super then ease of operation is if the old full super is on top, to remove and extract.
Like he said not much difference.

[Bill Murray]

Always on top. Cant see whats going on otherwise. Just crack the lid if 70% full of nectar add 2 more boxes.

[cao]

Well the nuc in question got a box added to the top.  I didn't want to disturb them.  I had another 5 over 5 nuc that I decided to add a box below.  It had probably a pound or maybe two pounds of bees bearding and I wanted to use a deep box to get some more bees on deep frames. 

[Bill Murray]

I know this might sound silly, just put a feeder jar on top. Here is what I find interesting, give the bees something to do. Build comb, feed brood, clean up comb. Normally the bearding issue goes away, even in the heat. Just what Ive noticed, we have to think in our summer its hot, no nectar coming in. no nectar no brood raising, even if the queens laying they are probably eating those eggs/larva.

[Ben Framed]

I was out in the bee yard playing with my bees and had a question.  I have a 5 over 5 nuc(medium frame) that needs more room. I was wondering should I put the next box on top or on bottom.  I am in no hurry to move them into 8 or 10 frame equipment yet.  May do that near the end or summer.  I was just curious as to what others would do and why.  Btw they were packed wall to wall bees with some hanging out on the front porch.

I have done this cao, I put the next box on top.. usually when the 4th box is close to being filled I will place the whole twenty frames in a double ten, with the bottom two boxes of frames placed in the first, or what will be the bottom 1o box then the top two fives, in the second 10 box, which gives them a double deep set up. Works for me when I go this route..

Phillip

[The15thMember]

This is sort of a related question.  I have a hive that made a huge mess of one of their supers.  They decided to go on a fat comb rampage, and now the whole box is cross-connected.  It's taking them forever to cap the comb, since they just keep making it fatter, and drawing weirdly in the empty spaces between the fat combs.  Is it better to put this box as the lowest super in the stack, so they work on it most?  Or would it be better as the top super, so they don't keep drawing new comb, just cap what is there?  Or doesn't it make a difference, and they will just do whatever they decide in the moment?   

[Ben Framed]

This is sort of a related question.  I have a hive that made a huge mess of one of their supers.  They decided to go on a fat comb rampage, and now the whole box is cross-connected.  It's taking them forever to cap the comb, since they just keep making it fatter, and drawing weirdly in the empty spaces between the fat combs.  Is it better to put this box as the lowest super in the stack, so they work on it most?  Or would it be better as the top super, so they don't keep drawing new comb, just cap what is there?  Or doesn't it make a difference, and they will just do whatever they decide in the moment?   

Reagan do you have pictures?

[cao]

I try to get rid of the crazy comb as soon as possible.  If you can't remove it immediately, I would get it as far away from the brood nest as possible.  So I would keep it as the top super and add empties below.  It makes it easier to remove later, being on top.

[The15thMember]

Reagan do you have pictures?

No, and I couldn't get any that would be helpful, the super is so cross-connected.  I can't even pull a single frame.  This hive is really into drawing fat comb this year.  I put 7 frames in their other supers, and that seems to have solved the problem, but this box was just too far gone to correct when I noticed it.

I try to get rid of the crazy comb as soon as possible.  If you can't remove it immediately, I would get it as far away from the brood nest as possible.  So I would keep it as the top super and add empties below.  It makes it easier to remove later, being on top.

Right now I have this as the middle super, essentially.  There is a full honey super below this one, so there is little risk of brood up here.  The hive is 7 boxes at the moment, the bottom 3 boxes are brood, this is box 5, and I just added two checkerboarded supers above it yesterday.  My question is, if I put this box on the top, will they ignore it in favor of the 2 fresh boxes I just added?  Because I want them to cap this crazy comb so I can harvest it and remove it.   

[Michael Bush]

If you have an excluder and the queen is below it, I would just let them finish filling the box and then harvest the whole thing.  Often the least messy way to get the combs out when pulling out a frame will make a mess,  is to flip the box upside down and remove the box from the combs.  Then you can peel one frame at a time off the sides or cut out the combs and remove them.

[The15thMember]

If you have an excluder and the queen is below it, I would just let them finish filling the box and then harvest the whole thing.

I don't use QXes, but I do have another full super below the messed up one, and I usually don't have trouble with queens crossing a honey barrier.   

Often the least messy way to get the combs out when pulling out a frame will make a mess,  is to flip the box upside down and remove the box from the combs.  Then you can peel one frame at a time off the sides or cut out the combs and remove them.

 
That's brilliant!  I'll definitely do that.  Thanks, Michael.

[cao]

As long as there is no brood in it, you can harvest when you want.  But them bees are awful hard to get to leave a cross combed super when they have a small hardball size patch of brood in the middle of it.  That happened to me about 7 years ago.  I had only had bees about 3 years then.