# Downside of honey super too early?



## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

If not enough bees to patrol the comb then wax moth might get to them if you
don't BT spray them first. Other than that there is no negative effect with a super on earlier.


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## bee keeper chef (Nov 1, 2015)

If you do not get them on soon enough you risk a swarm happened to me had 2 swarm sometime last week the boxes were packed full of honey my fault for not riding out to check them and getting a super on them sooner


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## gone2seed (Sep 18, 2011)

Better to have too much space, this time of year,than not enough.


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## psm1212 (Feb 9, 2016)

In my area, if you don't have enough bees to patrol your boxes, SHB will take over. But if you are putting in dry comb or foundation only, that should not be a problem.


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## Albatross (Mar 8, 2012)

psm1212 said:


> In my area, if you don't have enough bees to patrol your boxes, SHB will take over. But if you are putting in dry comb or foundation only, that should not be a problem.


Keep a good eye out for SHB especially if you're using plastic frames. They'll hide in the grooves of the frames where the bees can't get them. The bees can't kill them anyway, they just chase them into a corner or something.
Eventually, they'll build up to the point where the bees can't control them, and turn your honeycomb into slime.


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## va novice beekeeper (Aug 20, 2015)

So do any of you guys have a rule of thumb of when to add a 2nd honey super...My situation is that I have one 10 frame honey super on now and there is honey in about 60% of the frames. a couple frames just have some comb building going on and there are a couple frames that have not been touched at all or very very little. So should I wait till the box is pretty much full and at least 90 to 95 % combed in? Sort of same methodology as when adding a second brood box? I'm wanting to harvest as much honey as I can this spring with all the early blooming this year. 

I did add a honey box too soon last year and the beetles moved in, so I just took it off and waited until the brood box was just about full and tried again. Then the bees moved up in pretty good numbers and went to work. These are second year girls and doing really good. Lots of rain and early warm weather here in Tidewater Va. Thanks


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## aunt betty (May 4, 2015)

Burr comb is always a pretty good sign that a colony is wishing it had more space. 
Start seeing them making queen cups and burr combs might be a little late but it's a start towards building a "time to add another super" criteria.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

I plan to add a 2nd super after the 1st one all fill up with shiny nectar deposit. Doesn't matter if they
have cap them or not. This will prevent them from back filling the brood nest that might cause a swarm issue.


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

A wise beekeeper recently told me 'bees wont store anything in a super stacked in the barn'.


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## AHudd (Mar 5, 2015)

If supers are added to soon and a cold spell arrives, the cluster can move up and the Queen may start laying in it.

Alex


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## Hillbillybees (Mar 3, 2016)

Remove frames with some capped honey from the center to the outside. Make them use all of the box. Pull a box up and under-super. We usually leave one in the center of the box we add. 
Another thing we do is pull all capped honey and replace with wet extracted frames. They jump right on them. I believe we get more doing this but we run out of room to take it all home so then we lift the honey up and put the empty on top of the brood nest.


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