# Return supers to hives for potential fall flow?



## pseudoacacia (Sep 23, 2019)

Good afternoon. SE Indiana location.

Excellent honey harvest this year. Lots of beautiful honey.

Should I return extracted supers back to the strongest of hives for a potential fall flow? We have lots of goldenrod each year, and the rainfall has been good so the white clover continues to bloom.

This is what I would call my first season being more than a simple hobbyist. I had supers on 50 hives and the majority of them are full and capped and I am extracting them. Don't want to miss out on more honey but I also don't want to be unrealistic about what they may gather for themselves. All the hives that had supers also have big reserves of honey already stored in the brood boxes (I am currently using double deep brood boxes for most of my hives).

I have always counted on the fall flow just being a nice bonus for the bees to overwinter on. Now I'm wondering if they might make some real surplus if given the space, considering how much rainfall we have had.


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## Marcin (Jun 15, 2011)

In my location I wouldn't do it as there's rarely a strong enough flow to fill supers in the fall. 
You could put supers on some hives and compare to the ones that you didn't put them on.


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## Live Oak (Oct 11, 2008)

pseudoacacia said:


> Good afternoon. SE Indiana location.
> 
> Excellent honey harvest this year. Lots of beautiful honey.
> 
> ...


For many years I have tried this and never have the bees, even the strongest hives produced enough Fall honey to even bother with. We are on a large farm and are in the middle of a sea of goldenrod, wingstem, and ironweed that is followed by MANY acres of asters blooming late into Fall until the frost kills them. Goldenrod, wingstem, and ironweed have been blooming here in TN for almost 2 weeks with ample rains to keep them strong. I am finding that in spite of putting out 85 lbs. of Ultrabee dry feed and generously feed food patties that very little uncapped nectar is appearing in the extracted honey supers that I place on our hives for the bees to clean up. Each hive also gets a 2 gallon feeder bucket of 1 : 1 syrup. The Fall flow is the best I have ever seen it in my 15 years of beekeeping but the bees are using most of the nectar they are foraging. You want to maximize nutrition and mite control for the best possible Winter bee production. 

Your area may be better, I would not leave more than a single medium on each hive if I were you. I am taking all of mine off and gradually downsizing my hives to double deeps for the Fall & Winter. I want my hives to store whatever resources they are able to find in the 2 boxes they will occupy for the Winter. If you find your hives are not storing much nectar in the honey supers, I would remove them. Less space for the bees to occupy & defend as well as making it much tougher for SHB's to occupy the hive.


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## pseudoacacia (Sep 23, 2019)

Thanks to you both for your insights. Very helpful.


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