# Dumb Question: What is the difference between a super box and a hive box?



## marant (Jan 18, 2014)

I am getting ready to order my first hive components, going with 8 frame boxes. I have looked all over and have been unable to find out the difference between hive boxes and super boxes. Are they the same, defined by where they are in the hive? At one point I thought the hive box had an opening, but it looks like the entrance to the hive is actually in the base. The Mann Lake catalogue does not appear to have a separate listing for each.


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## gunter62 (Feb 13, 2011)

They are the same. They come in at least 4 depths and 2 widths. The ones containing the brood nest are often referred to as hive bodies, and the ones mainly containing honey are referred to as supers. All boxes are supers.


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## jim81147 (Feb 18, 2013)

If your boxes will all be the same size then it is just a matter of position ( like if you were going to use all 8 frame mediums let say ) in the column. If you are wanting to use deep boxes for the brood chamber then you would want to get 1 deep box ( I would think in Tx. that would be sufficient , northern climates usually use two ) for each hive you plan to set up and those would be constant. Then you would have to decide if you wanted to super with mediums , deeps or shallows . Weight , age and your physical shape are determining factors there , an 8 frame deep of honey is not light especially when its over your head . There is a lot to be said for starting out with all the same size equipment , it allows you easy access to all the resources in the bee yard to be used as they need to be like if you need to add some brood to one hive from another hive , you just grab the frames you need and swap them . makes for a much easier time .


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

I've never known how the word super came into use, be interesting if someone could explain that.

When I was a commercial beekeeper the word super was rarely or never used, they were called boxes. It was used for putting boxes on over the queen excluder for honey storage though, which was called "supering up". I think sometimes in any trade, words that are spoken often become the easiest one to say. "Super", is harder to say than "box". "Supering up", is easier to say than "putting on honey boxes".


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## Vance G (Jan 6, 2011)

When I was starting out, super was an action verb. When the bees need more room, you super them.

Super ,from the Latin, above or beyond.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Oldtimer said:


> I've never known how the word super came into use, be interesting if someone could explain that.
> 
> When I was a commercial beekeeper the word super was rarely or never used, they were called boxes.


You superimpose them onto the box below.

In American beekeeping parlance, a super is any box used in beekeeping which holds frames. A Deep Super, a 9 11/16 inch box, is sometimes called a Brood Box or Brood Super. There are medium supers(6 5/8"), Illinois or Illinois Deeps(7 plus inches), shallow supers(5 11/16 inch), and comb honey supers. They are all boxes, of course.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Oh very interesting.

By the way the word super is used here just as in the US, but mainly by equipment suppliers, and hobbyists. Commercial guys would pretty much only use it if a situation arose where the super had to be differentiated from some different box. My guess is the word super probably originated in the US, along with the Langstroth hive.


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## Rader Sidetrack (Nov 30, 2011)

From the Beesource Glossary: 



> *Super: *A wooden box with frames containing foundation or drawn comb in which honey is to be produced. Named for its position above the brood nest. The same type of box is referred to as a hive body when it is situated below the honey supers and is intended to be used for brood rearing and pollen storage.
> 
> http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?237911-Beekeeping-Glossary


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Oldtimer said:


> Oh very interesting.
> 
> By the way the word super is used here just as in the US, but mainly by equipment suppliers, and hobbyists. Commercial guys would pretty much only use it if a situation arose where the super had to be differentiated from some different box. My guess is the word super probably originated in the US, along with the Langstroth hive.


So what do you say when it's time to go out and put boxes on hives? "It's time to (what?)."


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

It's time to super up.

Today we'll go supering up.


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## marant (Jan 18, 2014)

Thanks, everyone, that was my conclusion also, but I was not sure.

As a beginner I intend to use all 8 frame medium boxes, with two on the bottom as brood boxes. I plan to have 4-5 extras to use as honey supers, realizing that I probably will not need them the first year, but one can always hope, and at least I will be ready for next year.

There is soooo much to learn.


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## Kevtater (May 17, 2013)

Super- Where the bees store the superfluous honey.


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## philip.devos (Aug 10, 2013)

marant said:


> Thanks, everyone, that was my conclusion also, but I was not sure.
> 
> As a beginner I intend to use all 8 frame medium boxes, with two on the bottom as brood boxes. I plan to have 4-5 extras to use as honey supers, realizing that I probably will not need them the first year, but one can always hope, and at least I will be ready for next year.
> 
> There is soooo much to learn.


I wish I had made your choice of 8-fr med. 

Phil


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## Barry Digman (May 21, 2003)

Here's a nice illustration of the hive components:

http://westernbee.com/pages/beehive.html


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## Pete O (Jul 13, 2013)

As for the opening, that's part of the base, not the box. The bottom edges on all boxes are flat/even. Years from now when you are an experienced beekeeper there will be exceptions but don't give that any thought at this point in time.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>I am getting ready to order my first hive components, going with 8 frame boxes. I have looked all over and have been unable to find out the difference between hive boxes and super boxes. Are they the same, defined by where they are in the hive?

Just make sure the measurments are what you want. Some places will call deeps brood boxes and mediums and shallows supers, but in reality, they are whatever you use them for.

> At one point I thought the hive box had an opening, but it looks like the entrance to the hive is actually in the base.

Yes, the entrances is in the bottom board.

> The Mann Lake catalogue does not appear to have a separate listing for each. 

No reason for separate listings unless they are different sizes. My guess is, if there are separate listings they ARE different sizes.

>I've never known how the word super came into use, be interesting if someone could explain that.

It's just latin for "above". When Langstroth started off there was only one brood box and everything else was "above" or "super". It was not short for anything. It's only been since "superman" that "super" took on it's Americanized meaning of "better" or "best". When Langstroth coined "nucleus colony" I don't think "nucleus" was in common usage in English... it was just another Latin word...


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## bevy's honeybees (Apr 21, 2011)

Oldtimer said:


> It's time to super up.
> 
> Today we'll go supering up.


Taking off honey- super down? super off? unsuper?


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Weirdly enough, we say taking off honey, where to be consistent I guess we should say supering down.

The spoken word can be a strange thing. :scratch:


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Stripping boxes off of hives. Or taking off honey.


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## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Stripping boxes. Interesting.

So what do you call someone you have employed to help harvest the honey? 

Actually I can add to that. When I started my own bee business from small beginnings I needed a day job and worked for a time in a factory making concrete pipes. The pipes were cast in steel moulds then next day the pipes were stripped out of the moulds, that was what I did and yes the job I did was known as a stripper.


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## sterling (Nov 14, 2013)

marant said:


> Thanks, everyone, that was my conclusion also, but I was not sure.
> 
> As a beginner I intend to use all 8 frame medium boxes, with two on the bottom as brood boxes. I plan to have 4-5 extras to use as honey supers, realizing that I probably will not need them the first year, but one can always hope, and at least I will be ready for next year.
> 
> There is soooo much to learn.


If you get started early enough in the spring with eight frame boxes you will probably need more then two boxes for brood and maybe even one or two for honey. They should build up to four total at least.


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## wmgeorge (Nov 6, 2010)

philip.devos said:


> I wish I had made your choice of 8-fr med.
> 
> Phil


 So for a guy who last kept Bees say 55 years ago, what is the weight of a 8 frame Medium box full of honey and bees? Thinking about getting a hive to start for this spring, need to find a place to place it.


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## Rader Sidetrack (Nov 30, 2011)

> what is the weight of a 8 frame Medium box full of honey and bees? 

Michael Bush has a page that lists typical weights of various box and frame combinations:

http://www.bushfarms.com/beeslazy.htm
Scroll down a bit and look for the subhead "Lighter Boxes"


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## wmgeorge (Nov 6, 2010)

Thank you for the reply and great Link!


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## derk_e_der (Feb 28, 2016)

Okay this may be equally dumb but are there any differences in the frames that you would put in a super vs. the brood box? I am not yet beekeeping but trying to sort through all of this so that I can be and now that I see I'm not the only one wondering about supers vs. brood boxes, I am still wondering about the frames that go in them. If I go foundationless, which is what I plan to do, would the frames in both types of boxes be foundationless or no? 

Thanks in advance for any help!


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## dixieswife (Apr 15, 2013)

Derk, you can go foundationless in both types of boxes. We do and we crush n strain for honey, though we have a couple plastic frames with foundation as left overs from when we got the nuc. I think the bees still haven't drawn it all out yet and eventually we'll just use it for a bait hive or something. 

A couple downsides with foundationless: bees have to keep redrawing those combs, which takes time and their energy which could instead be going to making more honey. Having foundation means you can use an extractor to, well, extract the honey and still have a usable drawn frame left. Foundationaless also means you need to make sure your hives are level side to side and keep an eye out for wonky comb. Fixing it isn't much of a hassle if you get to it early (serrated bread knife and rubber bands are useful for cutting out/affixing comb back to a foundationless frame), but if you let it go nuts, well, it's a mess. Once you get some nice comb, checkerboarding it with undrawn frames will help them draw out the empty frames nice and neat. 

At least that's our experience thus far. This year we're working on trying to get a hive or two to serve as a frame-drawing "factory" though by now we have a lot of extra drawn frames laying around.


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## derk_e_der (Feb 28, 2016)

Thank you so much for the quick response and CLEAR answer! For some reason I was thinking the frames in the brood chamber were different than the supers. I'm glad they're the same. Is it possible to mix plastic and foundationless? Say start with half plastic to get everything nice and straight and then insert some foundationless or would that maybe confuse them? I want to stay away from wax due to all of the diseases I have read about which just almost scare one away from beekeeping before ever starting. 

And thanks for the info. about messy combs, I have read about that aspect and am going to try to stay on top of that. 

Hmmm didn't think so much about them starting from scratch every time with foundationless but a little less honey and a lot less disease/problems sounds like a good trade off.

Thanks again!


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

Oldtimer said:


> I've never known how the word super came into use, be interesting if someone could explain that.


You 'super' the box when it's placed on top of the stack, conversly, placing it on the bottom is a nadir. the terms are not exclusive to beekeeping.


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## BadBeeKeeper (Jan 24, 2015)

derk_e_der said:


> For some reason I was thinking the frames in the brood chamber were different than the supers.


They *are* different if you are using different size boxes for brood and supers- I use deeps for brood and mediums for supers, they are different heights. You can fit a medium frame in a deep box, but a deep frame will not fit in a medium box. (That may seem obvious to most of us, but I don't know what you don't know.)


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## sterling (Nov 14, 2013)

The frames for brood and the frames for honey storage can be the same. But if you are going to use foundationless frames the comb cells the bees draw for honey will usually be a little bigger then the cell size for brood. They will store honey in brood comb and will raise drone brood in honey comb and will draw some worker cells in honey frames if you don't use an excluder.
And you don't have to crush and strain foundationless frames. They can be extracted in a radial extractor. I use a 20 frame Maxant to extract mine every year.


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## DanielD (Jul 21, 2012)

Oldtimer said:


> So what do you call someone you have employed to help harvest the honey?


The Superman


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