# Would your remove a 4th box with only some pollen?



## BeekeepingIsGood (Aug 12, 2012)

My goal for Toronto winters with a strong hive is at least 2 boxes wroth of honey and 3 boxes in total.

In practice I've found it hard to balance things right so they don't get over crowded in the peak of the season, yet still make good use of all the space by the end of the season. Or so I think... I have a couple of 4 box hives now where they have the target amount of stores in the top 3 boxes. The bottom 4th boxes are mostly all drawn out but the bees have all moved up. Just some pollen in there.

So half of me wants to remove the 4th boxes so there is a smaller hive volume for winter. The other half of me knows many beekeepers feed pollen supplements in the fall/spring and I wonder if it would be best not to remove any pollen they have stored up.

What would you do?


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## Slow Drone (Apr 19, 2014)

Honey at the top pollen at the bottom that's the way it needs to bee. I wouldn't change a thing you're in good shape.


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## aunt betty (May 4, 2015)

Let the bees decide and it looks as if they already have. Leave it alone. They know what's best for themselves.


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## enjambres (Jun 30, 2013)

A box BELOW the main population boxes that is only partially filled with pollen (or honey, as my bees skipped that chapter the Rules For Bees book) is fine. If the box in question was a late addition on TOP that didn't get much action after all, then I would remove it, carefully storing and protecting the frames for use in in Spring, or use them to equalize resources for a weaker colony.

In other words a partially filled box under the hive is fine, but a partially filled box above the cluster is not such a good thing.

If you have a situation where you have more than one "pollen box" at the bottom of the stack, assuming sufficient space and resources in the main section, I would also remove it for ease of management for the hives over the winter. 

The OP is in Toronto and I am in northern NY, I have kept boxes like this set on an upturned telecover, and topped with another telecover (both with metal tops), in an unheated barn and they wintered safely and successfully. In warmer climates this would not be the case, but where we are the whole world is a natural deep freeze for months on end. Frames stored like this are frozen, and even once they thaw in the spring they stay clean and usable until June, or so, though usually they are back in the hives by then.

I know the oft repeated rule of the bees _always_ putting honey above and pollen below, but just yesterday I encountered a box of nearly all pollen-filled frames as the next to uppermost box in a very tall stack. (The upper box was mostly empty - I threw it on just in case a few weeks ago when our Fall flow surged unexpectedly. I stuck a bee-escape under it yesterday and it's coming off today.) This colony is profoundly top-entrance oriented so maybe that has something to with the odd placement of pollen frames. There is freshly capped brood in the box below the pollen.

Enj.


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