# Too Tall? - Stacking Supers to Silly Heights



## Beetastic (Apr 12, 2011)

I searched but didn't find a definitive answer regarding stack/super height. Why do some beeks stack and stack to what seems to be no end? Beyond the "wow" factor, does it serve a purpose? Maybe acting as a storage facility (for beek) for honey until it's time to extract? Does stacking really tall offer anything beneficial to bees or beekeeper? Maybe it helps cull swarm behavior if you put on a bunch of supers once the flow starts? Would love to hear ideas and experience.


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

I stack high because I have a real job to pay the bills and don't have time to extract earlier. This year I had to extract early because I ran out of supers.


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## Beetastic (Apr 12, 2011)

So does that mean you put on all your supers when - in the next few weeks? I am visiting my yards tomorrow. I was a bit shocked at opening up a few of my colonies this past Saturday and finding surpluses of honey in the 30lbs /colony range for this winter. Obviously a good shock, but I need to open up the hives big time. The idea of stack lots of drawn comb + new frames had me wondering about doing it all at once and going tall. As an aside, does anyone think this method helps prevent swarms?


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

In Redwood City you should remove all full combs of honey in the brood chamber and replace them with comb or foundation. If they are single brood chambers you could add a second. I stack on honey supers only one or two at a time and ad more when the top one is maybe 60-80% full. The mid penninsula has a eucalyptus flow starting at Halloween and strong hives should have a honey super on all winter.


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## bluegrass (Aug 30, 2006)

Most do it for shock factor. Every time you see one of these pictures it includes the beekeeper posing with it.... It is beekeeper mine is bigger then yours posturing.


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## Redbug (Feb 8, 2014)

bluegrass said:


> Most do it for shock factor. Every time you see one of these pictures it includes the beekeeper posing with it.... It is beekeeper mine is bigger then yours posturing.


I have wondered about that, too. Now I understand. It's like hunting and the beekeeper is showing his trophy...Ahhh...


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## WLC (Feb 7, 2010)

bluegrass:

That's part of it. But, I think that there are some good reasons to use a tower hive configuration that have been explained in terms of Honeybee biology/behavior. Taking advantage of the hoarding instinct and depleting wax workers are possible reasons. Convenience is another. From what I understand of it, 3 deeps and 7 supers is about as tall as you should go.

I left supers on late into December, and they backfilled the 3 deeps nicely. With the hard winter we've had so far, it has provided some piece of mind.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

If the boxes aren't on the hives bees won't put honey in them.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>If the boxes aren't on the hives bees won't put honey in them. 

Seems like someone, I think Michael Palmer, had a cute way of saying that... but it's true, bees never put honey in the supers that are still in the shed...


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

I had some stacked pretty high last year - full of honey - very little of it was ready to extract, because it wasn't cured and capped.

And the flip side of "those guys are just showIng off" is I bet you wish you could take a picture like that too.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

bluegrass said:


> Most do it for shock factor...


thats a lot of work to show off....

When bees bring in 25 - 50 lbs of honey per week, we do all we can to stay ahead of the production in the honey house. ALL boxes on hand get sent out and stacked until we can get around to pulling them.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

http://s1277.photobucket.com/user/IanSteppler/media/IMG_0008_zpscb2be925.jpg.html?sort=3&o=8

The flows will hit and within days the hives will start filling. We will send everything we have out and start pulling the honey in order to turn the boxes over.

http://s1277.photobucket.com/user/IanSteppler/media/IMG_0017_zps0ace7a3c.jpg.html

This is a yard after the first round honey had been collected. As you can see these boxes are full of bees and they happen to be plugged with honey not one week after pulling the first round honey off. At this particular point of time we did not have any extra equipment but these hives needed another two boxes each. Instead we came back the following week and pulled off these supers giving them more empty space. When we manage our hives tight in space like these ones are we tend to find an increase in late season swarming. 
In this business we are limited to "all we can do"



David LaFerney said:


> And the flip side of "those guys are just showIng off" is I bet you wish you could take a picture like that too.


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## JWChesnut (Jul 31, 2013)

I agree with ODFrank. In coastal Ca, one has a Euc flow starting in midwinter, and you should super for that excellent honey.

Additionally, keep the hives somewhat short -- there is no heat to ripen the honey by evaporating the water, and a big empty super stack just makes a damp, cold hive.

In my coastal location, summertime is often in the mid-60's and the heat bee's love is not present. Redwood City might be slightly warmer, but "June Gloom" fog is going to cut drone flights and leave unfinished honey languishing in the hive.

Moreover, Coastal Ca has no "flow" in the summer -- and the unripe honey will be quickly consumed in the dearth. Redwood City is *not* North Dakota with thousands of acres of Canola and Sunflowers surrounding every hive. You will have some Poison Ivy, Toyon, Coffeeberry and late Ceanothus in the open space. Toyon is a main summer flow, but only occurs on wet years when plants are vigourous - not going to see that this year. The suburban yard's roses are more than likely to be doused in pesticide, and will kill the visiting bees.

We simply don't have the summer super-abundance to create the Tim Ives-style towers. We have mild and continuing flow 11 months a year -- its a trade-off.

Swarming is not prevented by excess space, per se. Swarming is a negative control of Queen Mandibular Hormone -- if it is diluted below a set concentration, the queen's hive control breaks down, and swarm cells are constructed by panic-striken nurse bees. Building up a big empty hive with a queen wandering about will create swarm cells -- typically on the lower story while the queen is off exploring the penthouse. The key to swarm prevention is an open, but compact brood oval. Keep it compact, but always with an open frame nearby. Do this by pulling the 2nd and 9th frames (usually with honey-pollen-drone) and replacing the 3rd and 8th with open, drawn comb-- spreading the brood oval to the edges of the same box. It's so much easier to do that management when you do not have to dig through 5 supers to get to the brood, or when the brood is a long, thin column traveling up through 4 or 5 boxes.


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## Beetastic (Apr 12, 2011)

> In Redwood City you should remove all full combs of honey in the brood chamber and replace them with comb or foundation. If they are single brood chambers you could add a second. I stack on honey supers only one or two at a time and ad more when the top one is maybe 60-80% full. The mid penninsula has a eucalyptus flow starting at Halloween and strong hives should have a honey super on all winter.


My MO is to super when I've got 6 to 7 full frames of honey. I bottom super and sometimes pull a few frames of empty honey into the new super. Depends on how tired I am  With 30 colonies + a full time job and a 1 year old, time is a precious thing for sure. Loving the Eucalyptus honey. Didn't think we would have much this year - most of the trees I saw were brown and leaves were brown. I've never seen them do that. That being said, I've only been keeping bees for 4 years, and flora sort of went unnoticed (well, big old trees anyway)

JWChesnut, Redwood City definitely has nicer summers than Morro Bay. I lived on my boat in the harbor for a few years, and I know about fog all too well. Wish I could have lived in the valley that runs along HW 41. Just where the fog licks the avocado orchards. Now that's some nice weather. Cool, but warm, if that makes sense. But yes, I am a fan of not having too many hive bodies to dig through. I run all mediums, so at least I save a few pounds of stress on my back when it's time for an inspection versus lugging deeps. 

In regards to looking cool or whatever with towers, I could care less. I think having a beehive has a wow factor all it's own 

Cheers!


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## JWChesnut (Jul 31, 2013)

OD Frank has made a couple of references to the Halloween start to the Euc flow. We don't have that in SLO County. ******** starts in late-December to January. The fall Eucs in this area are the small ornamental street trees like the red gum and silver gum which are welcome but are restricted to built up areas. 

Perhaps the peninsula has a greater number of ornamental Euc plantings of the red gum, rather than the old ranch specimen Blue Gums in our less congested county. Or alternatively the earlier start to the wet season in Nor Cal means the Tasmanian ******** starts earlier there.

The ******** Euc flowers were opening this year first-second week of January. They had no nectar in the cups until the rains came. Flowers, but no flow -- I hadn't seen that before, plenty of pollen in the cloud of stamens though, so the hives built brood.


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

JWChesnut said:


> pulling the 2nd and 9th frames (usually with honey-pollen-drone) and replacing the 3rd and 8th with open, drawn comb-


When, how often, and how effective is this? And yes I know - it all depends. but in relative terms?


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## Kamon A. Reynolds (Apr 15, 2012)

Ian said:


> thats a lot of work to show off....
> 
> ya what he said. If I had flows like they do in Northern states I think I would break in half. Here in Tennessee My hives can (on the ground) hit 6-7 feet no problem.
> 
> I could go higher but I am 5 foot 6. Depends on the individuals management.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Michael Bush said:


> >If the boxes aren't on the hives bees won't put honey in them.
> 
> Seems like someone, I think Michael Palmer, had a cute way of saying that... but it's true, bees never put honey in the supers that are still in the shed...


Yeah, you two Mikes get all the credit. 

That's either a variation on a Busterism or a MacDonaldism. "Bees won't fill supers if the supers are still in the barn."


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## bluegrass (Aug 30, 2006)

Credit is a funny thing... That "Mountaincamp" fella gets all the credit for something beekeepers were doing for 50 years before he even laid his hands on a hive.


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

But nobody ever gave it a catchy name before. Or if they did it failed to stick.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

David LaFerney said:


> But nobody ever gave it a catchy name before. Or if they did it failed to stick.


the guy 50 years ago didnt bring his idea to beesource


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

David LaFerney said:


> But nobody ever gave it a catchy name before. Or if they did it failed to stick.


Yeah, I guess Dry Sugar Feeding is too vague. Ha, ha.


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## Tim Ives (May 28, 2013)

JWChesnut said:


> We simply don't have the summer super-abundance to create the Tim Ives-style towers. We have mild and continuing flow 11 months a year -- its a trade-off.


Super abundant summer flow??? I failed to miss when that is. Most of my flows are from small patches of trees between corn fields. 
Mid July till late Aug is a dearth till goldenrod.


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## Beetastic (Apr 12, 2011)

Interesting to hear how and when different beeks super. 

Just visited 3 yards today and the season is on. First big round of drones are all capped up, big build-ups of worker brood, and lots of pollen and nectar coming in. A few colonies seemed none to happy to see me. Hopefully we have a good nectar flow.


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## bluegrass (Aug 30, 2006)

David LaFerney said:


> But nobody ever gave it a catchy name before. Or if they did it failed to stick.


MountainCamp didn't either. In fact he never even started any specific thread about dry sugar feeding, he posted pictures in other peoples threads and called it emergency feeding.... "MountainCamp method" spawned on it's own. If you run an advance search there are threads about dry sugar feeding before MountainCamp even posted anything about it...Which is likely where he got the idea


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## bluegrass (Aug 30, 2006)

Back to the topic at hand:

I think most at one time or another try staking a supers as high as they can just for the fun of it, but it is generally not common practice. I personally like to pull and spin frames through out the season as it allows you to have various grades and flavors of honey rather then spinning it all together. But I don't have 100s of hives to contend with.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>That's either a variation on a Busterism or a MacDonaldism. "Bees won't fill supers if the supers are still in the barn." 

Who are Buster and MacDonald? But yes, that was the saying. Maybe it was you who posted it before.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Michael Bush said:


> Who are Buster and MacDonald?


Mentors of mine from NY. Michael Palmer knows them too. I'd attribute the phrase to Buster, as the person I heard it from first. Mac knows it is true too.

"Do things when you can, not when you want to." That's a MacDonaldism. Such as now, when it is lightly raining and below 40 degrees and there is beework I could be doing.

"Just because hives are tall doesn't mean they are full of honey." That's mine. There are folks who put supers on hives every time they go to the bee yard. Because, getting to the bee yard can be the hardest thing one does. So, since you are there you might as well do something productive. Putting on another super is productive. Plugged out supers indicate the lack of supers at the right time. And you can't always be there at the right time.

These thoughts/adages are from a Commercial point of view and would be something a sideliner should keep in mind, but may not make any difference to a small scale beekeeper.


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

bluegrass said:


> MountainCamp didn't either. In fact he never even started any specific thread about dry sugar feeding, he posted pictures in other peoples threads and called it emergency feeding.... "MountainCamp method" spawned on it's own. If you run an advance search there are threads about dry sugar feeding before MountainCamp even posted anything about it...Which is likely where he got the idea


Funny how things get named sometimes - But somebody somewhere called this particular practice the Mountaincamp method for the first time, and it differentiates it from other emergency feeding methods. It caught on and now just about *everyone knows what you are talking about when you say it so it simplifies communication.* That may be the point at which a word (or expression in this case) becomes a part of language - beekeeper jargon anyway. English teachers may hate it, but these things just happen without official approval.

So... Tall hives - everyone should try it at least once.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

"Everyone" w/in the beesource community maybe. Like any other name, for those who have some idea what it means, it's a short hand way to refer to something or someone.


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## Tim Ives (May 28, 2013)

bluegrass said:


> Back to the topic at hand:
> 
> I think most at one time or another try staking a supers as high as they can just for the fun of it, but it is generally not common practice. I personally like to pull and spin frames through out the season as it allows you to have various grades and flavors of honey rather then spinning it all together. But I don't have 100s of hives to contend with.


I do have over 100 hives. I surely don't drag pallets of supers with bobcat out for the fun of it. If you call putting full supers back on pallets in June, July and Sept fun. Then I guess you can say I'm stacking them high with a ladder for the fun of doing so.. Hives near orchards get a bonus pull in May. 

2011 I tried 10 supers on top of the 3 deep hives. None supered had all 10 filled, 7 was the average. Which is why I dropped back to using 7. Which allows me to super up more early. Whatever didn't get supered gets split.


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## Tim Ives (May 28, 2013)

When placing supers on. Super boxes are checker boarded (not frames). New super is placed at the bottom then drawn placed above. I dont get into the brood boxes. After looking at 100's of hives you'll see a average of activities of what's going on. Anything below average doesn't get supered and ends up getting split.


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## Beetastic (Apr 12, 2011)

I think for SF Bay Area guys like myself - after looking at my own experience and hearing others - there's not much need to stack so tall. We get a good March, April, and May flow, but after that it slows down. The most I've supered (so far) is three mediums. I'll gladly take 100lbs averages on all my hives


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## HarryVanderpool (Apr 11, 2005)

We have a beekeeper In Oregon that is largely regarded as the "Johnny Appleseed" of Pacific Northwest Beekeeping.
His name is Oliver Petty. He turns 100 this year.
We had a meeting in the early 1990s where EVERYONE IN THE ROOM either learned directly or indirectly from him!!!
Anyway, he and another fine fellow, Jim Elkins (that I ended up working for) in the 1960s placed a number of hive scales under hives in hairy vetch.
One year they recorded a net gain of over 16LBS per hive per day!
Think about that.
At 16 pounds per day, the bees filled a medium super every other day!
How could one ever anticipate or keep up with that in a large operation?
The answer of course is to error to capacity side during a flow rather than to push her to the bottom board.
Back to Petty and Elkins's study, the gain continued until the first day of rain when the graph flat-lined and then began a slow decrease.

How many times have you went to a yard to pull supers and found them filled and capped solid in the top super and realized that you may have missed out due to lack of space?
I have many times.
If we have supers and a flow is on, I suggest that we error to the positive side of the scale.
Unless of course you want 250Lb plugged out brood nests, which is your decision.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

It's just about the same amount of work taking off empty supers as it is full ones, but they won't be full if not on the hives. So why would you ever store them anywhere other than on the hives?


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## jhirsche (Jun 15, 2009)

Tim Ives said:


> When placing supers on. Super boxes are checker boarded (not frames). New super is placed at the bottom then drawn placed above. I dont get into the brood boxes. After looking at 100's of hives you'll see a average of activities of what's going on. Anything below average doesn't get supered and ends up getting split.


Tim, The new "empty" supers have frames with only undrawn wax and/or pierco foundation, right?


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## bluegrass (Aug 30, 2006)

There is a more efficient way of doing things. In Spain they tailor their operations to the crop. They calculate max potential production per acre and put an adequate number of hives on that crop. For example a good locust flow can put out 2000 lbs per acre, so 12 lang hives with 2 supers each is an adequate number to maximize that crop.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Are there any negatives to placing more supers on a hive than what the bees can fill? Is it common practice to use a QE if you are going to pile on a bunch of empty supers? If you did use a QE and say you put on 5 supers would they fill from the top or from the bottom?


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## bluegrass (Aug 30, 2006)

Acebird said:


> Are there any negatives to placing more supers on a hive than what the bees can fill?


Other then the physical act of putting them on and taking them off? Have you ever worked a monster hive? It is no fun. I would rather have three smaller hives collecting the crop than one that is 10 boxes tall and you need a step ladder to reach the top of.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

bluegrass said:


> I would rather have three smaller hives collecting the crop than one that is 10 boxes tall and you need a step ladder to reach the top of.


So would I. What I call a monster hive and what you call a monster hive could be different.

I am trying to learn something. The answer I expected to my first question would be something like this: "Yes, the large empty space makes the hive more vulnerable to _______________________." Or just plain "No, doesn't hurt the colony at all"


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## Tim Ives (May 28, 2013)

jhirsche said:


> Tim, The new "empty" supers have frames with only undrawn wax and/or pierco foundation, right?


Correct. 10 frames in the new boxes. 9 frames in drawn boxes. Boxes are also color coded.
The bees will fill the drawn box first.

Also note this is done on 3 deep brood box systems. 2 deep deep systems have dramatically less population.


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## Beetastic (Apr 12, 2011)

Acebird, maybe Bluegrass is saying that the physical toll of working a tall hive is a negative in itself, and that was his answer? But tall hives actually affecting the colony or production? Someone had mentioned earlier that stacking tall depends a lot on where your bees are, and if the weather + environment make it a beneficial move. I've got some hives along coastal California, but it wouldn't behoove me to stack tall, because we just don't get the heat to help ripen all the honey.


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## WLC (Feb 7, 2010)

There are a few theories of why tall hives (triple deeps) might provide some advantages over standard single or double deep hive and super configurations.

I think that the extra room at the bottom of a 3 deep configuration provides a lot of extra space for nectar storage, thereby freeing up the rest of the deeps for other productivity related bee activities.

It's part of unlimited broodnest theory.

The extra supers provide space for the hoarding instinct.

That's some of what I understand about how it's supposed to work.


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## Tim Ives (May 28, 2013)

WLC said:


> There are a few theories of why tall hives (triple deeps) might provide some advantages over standard single or double deep hive and super configurations.
> 
> I think that the extra room at the bottom of a 3 deep configuration provides a lot of extra space for nectar storage, thereby freeing up the rest of the deeps for other productivity related bee activities.
> 
> ...


Pretty close WLC. The triples have the resources to allow the colony to brood up well before anything is coming into the hive. You'll end up with Atleast one brood cycle more vs a double. With the extra deep the Queen has more room to lay out. As the population increases, so must the space proportionally and without letting them to start backfilling. So initially the supers(space) is added for the growing population. The drawn supers entices the hoarding behavior and the checker boarded new supers. Keeps the wax builders depleted. 

Timing is everything.


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## tommysnare (Jan 30, 2013)

Michael Bush said:


> >If the boxes aren't on the hives bees won't put honey in them.
> 
> Seems like someone, I think Michael Palmer, had a cute way of saying that... but it's true, bees never put honey in the supers that are still in the shed...



:lpf::lpf:


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

WLC said:


> It's part of unlimited broodnest theory.


So are you saying you don't use a QE for tall stacked hives? It seams like no one wants to touch this question. Not what I expected.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

WLC said:


> I think that the extra room at the bottom of a 3 deep configuration provides a lot of extra space for nectar storage, thereby freeing up the rest of the deeps for other productivity related bee activities.


What?!! Think again WLC. How often have you seen a triple deep hive w/ honey stored in the bottom deep?

Brian, I don't usually run anymore than two deeps and I don't usually use queen excluders w/ them unless there happens to be some brood in the honey supers, found when it's time to harvest.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

OK thanks Mark. How many supers do you put on and are they shallows or mediums? I also would like to know if you mix in foundation and do you do it by the box or checkerboard it with drawn comb?


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## WLC (Feb 7, 2010)

Acebird: I have two queen excluders, but I don't use them with this configuration.

sqkcrk: I said nectar. Unless you provide some extra space for it, they'll put it just anywhere.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

What does stored nectar become?


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## WLC (Feb 7, 2010)

Tim Ives said:


> Pretty close WLC. The triples have the resources to allow the colony to brood up well before anything is coming into the hive. You'll end up with Atleast one brood cycle more vs a double. With the extra deep the Queen has more room to lay out. As the population increases, so must the space proportionally and without letting them to start backfilling. So initially the supers(space) is added for the growing population. The drawn supers entices the hoarding behavior and the checker boarded new supers. Keeps the wax builders depleted. Timing is everything.


I've got two BeeWeavers in triple deeps, with plenty of stores, ready for liftoff.

I hope they don't go down though after this tough winter.

I'm keeping an eye on a Growing Degree Days tracker (gddtracker.net) so I can at least judge what's coming in.

Tim, you would be doing me a big favor if you start a thread in TF beekeeping to explain the steps you are taking as you prep your own hives.

I'm concerned that these two hives could turn into boomers that might get out of my control. I'd hate for them to swarm.


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## WLC (Feb 7, 2010)

sqkcrk said:


> What does stored nectar become?


The incoming nectar needs time to cure before it gets turned into honey.

If the colony does become a boomer, they'll need plenty of space to store it first.

I think that a key part of unlimited broodnest theory is that you want to avoid interfering with the natural structure of the broodnest and stores. If there's not enough space, they'll start working against each other.


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## Tim Ives (May 28, 2013)

WLC said:


> I've got two BeeWeavers in triple deeps, with plenty of stores, ready for liftoff.
> 
> I hope they don't go down though after this tough winter.
> 
> ...


The first indicator is fresh pollen coming in. The colony doesn't start drone production till fresh pollen. Drones need to be 16 days old to be matured to mate. So..once drones start emerging the colony can start Qcells. 
My area March 11th on average is fresh pollen. April 27th average start on swarms, so Qcells was started April 11th. I super 2 weeks prior.

Check brood frame quantities. They'll average 18 frames +/-3 frames. Every frame emerged equals 2 frames of bees. 18 frames equals another 36 frames (3.6 deeps) or 6 mediums. Which is why I use 7. Doing so doubles the space.


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## Tim Ives (May 28, 2013)

WLC said:


> The incoming nectar needs time to cure before it gets turned into honey.
> 
> If the colony does become a boomer, they'll need plenty of space to store it first.
> 
> I think that a key part of unlimited broodnest theory is that you want to avoid interfering with the natural structure of the broodnest and stores. If there's not enough space, they'll start working against each other.


Space is the timing issue, getting the supers(space) on before that large population cycles out, becomes foragers ABD start backfilling in the bottom.


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## Tim Ives (May 28, 2013)

Acebird said:


> So are you saying you don't use a QE for tall stacked hives? It seams like no one wants to touch this question. Not what I expected.


No Q/E needed. A Queen can only lay so many eggs in a cycle. As long as the colony is giving enough room above the brood area. The brood area stays on the bottom 3 deeps. The New super creates the barrier. Foragers will fill the drawn super first. Need a good nectar flow for wax builders to ramp up. The second super is done filled already. 

Feeding to stimulate throws off the natural cycles. Since I don't feed, can't answer on the dynamics of doing so.


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## Tim Ives (May 28, 2013)

sqkcrk said:


> What?!! Think again WLC. How often have you seen a triple deep hive w/ honey stored in the bottom deep?


I see it all the time on hives not supered. Does it get capped? No.. They'll start backfilling wherever brood emerged out of. Wax builders use it to gorge to get primed.


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

>So are you saying you don't use a QE for tall stacked hives? It seams like no one wants to touch this question. Not what I expected.

I use QE's on my stacks. These are on top of ten frame Jumbo depth single brood chambers:


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Tim Ives said:


> The New super creates the barrier.


This new super, is it foundation, drawn comb or checkerboarded foundation/drawn comb?
thanks.


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## Tim Ives (May 28, 2013)

Acebird said:


> This new super, is it foundation, drawn comb or checkerboarded foundation/drawn comb?
> thanks.


New foundation with 10 frame. Problem with checker boarding frames, they'll still go to the drawn frames first. Draw them out more and not draw the new correctly. If you CB using capped honey frames then they'll draw correctly. But that's to much work. 
I haven't had a Queen pass the New super to get into the drawn supers. 

In 2011 when using 10 supers. One out of 8 hives ended up with a second queen in top supers. On them hives you coulf of put another 8 supers on.


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## jhirsche (Jun 15, 2009)

Ace, If I may speak for Tim - the first super above the 3-deep brood chambers has 10 frames with new foundation (not yet drawn.) Above that, he places another super of drawn foundation, above that a super of new foundation, and on top, another super of drawn foundation. Two to three weeks later, he adds another 2-3 supers... I believe between the brood chambers and that first super of new foundation (which the bees may have worked at that point.)

I'm going to transition 20 or so colonies to a three-deep system this season. Tim has been kind enough to advise me on how, with subsequent supering after those are in place. I may even try to treat some of my prolific "two-deep and a medium" hives in the 3-deep fashion this spring, just to see If I can get them going early.


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

What I've been told is that if you have too many supers and the bees are spread too thin, they can't corral small hive beetles. So if you have seven honey supers and they've only got a scattering of bees on them, you're setting yourself up to turn an awful lot of honey into slime.

Our plan is progressive harvest, pull frames off as the supers fill, and we're thinking of sticking to two supers max and see how that goes. But if you do have three deeps of brood and a thriving colony when honey is flowing, and can keep the frames crawling with workers, or if you have SHB knocked down to nothing, that's probably the real criterion.


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## Vance G (Jan 6, 2011)

In happier days when I was young and had bees on big fields of conservation reserve acreage, I supered off the truck and built boxes all night. I extracted in my spare time. Sometimes they got real tall and I sure wish I would have got a picture of one 9 deeps high with bees hanging out of the upper entrance. Like the man said, it is a lot of work to make a show and with fuel costs, who would find it worthwhile?


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Thanks guys. I have always added boxes in succession, not knowing any better, and I think I will try throwing them all on this year. That would be assuming I have a colony that survives the winter.


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## WLC (Feb 7, 2010)

Acebird:

There's a lot of prep work/factors involved in getting to the point where putting on extra supers makes a difference.

As Tim was explaining, part of it is getting an extra brood cycle before the main flow.


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## max2 (Dec 24, 2009)

bluegrass said:


> Credit is a funny thing... That "Mountaincamp" fella gets all the credit for something beekeepers were doing for 50 years before he even laid his hands on a hive.


Most quotes are credited to ANON - whoever s/he is?


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## Tim Ives (May 28, 2013)

Phoebee said:


> What I've been told is that if you have too many supers and the bees are spread too thin, they can't corral small hive beetles. So if you have seven honey supers and they've only got a scattering of bees on them, you're setting yourself up to turn an awful lot of honey into slime.
> 
> Our plan is progressive harvest, pull frames off as the supers fill, and we're thinking of sticking to two supers max and see how that goes. But if you do have three deeps of brood and a thriving colony when honey is flowing, and can keep the frames crawling with workers, or if you have SHB knocked down to nothing, that's probably the real criterion.


How does a hive of 40-50# of bees filling 7 supers drop to a scattering of bees? I see more SHB after the nucs vs supered hives. Even if they swarm, can't tell till the second round of pulling honey and will have a higher 3rd round.
As soon as supers are capped, they get pulled, extracted and back on within 3 days. Them boxes get extracted several times in a year.


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

Tim Ives said:


> How does a hive of 40-50# of bees filling 7 supers drop to a scattering of bees? I see more SHB after the nucs vs supered hives. Even if they swarm, can't tell till the second round of pulling honey and will have a higher 3rd round.
> As soon as supers are capped, they get pulled, extracted and back on within 3 days. Them boxes get extracted several times in a year.


If you have that many bees, fine. I just meant that if you have one middlin' brood box and suddenly slap 7 honey supers on it, things are gonna look a bit lonely in there. The strategy I've been taught is to size the hive so the frames are all well-patrolled. Don't get too far ahead of the population. Don't get behind it, either, unless you like going around and collecting bees in buckets. 

In business these days they've stopped saying "downsizing" and started calling it "rightsizing".


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## WWW (Feb 6, 2011)

Correct me if I am wrong but I thought SHB seek out the pollen and honey which is stored in brood comb, the honey supers shouldn't be a problem when they are empty, as the colony population expands and starts filling the supers there should also be enough bees to cover these supers they are filling and provide protection from the beetles. 

As yet I don't have SHB so I am just offering an opinion based on deduction with no experience on the subject.


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