Under supering rapeseed honey alternative to harvesting

[thewoodgatherer]

Where I live we do get a lot of rapeseed but it looks like the farmers are moving away from it locally and the number of fields has plummeted in recent years. This years looking like we wont have much if any within a few miles so I'm thinking of removing some supers if we do after flowing and hold them back on some of the hives to under super in September instead of the usual spin out and creaming. I do like to leave my bees with plenty of their own stash . Any thoughts on this from you guys would be much apricated.

[NigelP]

Whatever spring honey it is it will have set solid in the comb by the time you undersuper with it. If you are confident your bees can deal with it then fine. But I would keep an eye on it and make sure they do move it.

[thewoodgatherer]

Whatever spring honey it is it will have set solid in the comb by the time you undersuper with it. If you are confident your bees can deal with it then fine. But I would keep an eye on it and make sure they do move it.

It surely will have. My question was to those with experience of this maybe. Are you saying that they may just ignore it and not move it, alternatively what about putting it back above instead.

[AdamD]

Last summer I had some OSR super frames that I couldn't extract. I put them under the broodbox which had a swarm in. (From bottom up I had

• Closed floor
  Super
  Queen excluder
  1" eke with entrance
  Brood box
  Crownboard and roof).

It saved having to feed the swarm to get comb drawn well and avoided me having to do anything with the set honey. A couple of weeks later, the super was empty and it could be removed;
I am pretty confident that your bees will take up any food that's underneath them - provided it's not too late in the season.

[thewoodgatherer]

Last summer I had some OSR super frames that I couldn't extract. I put them under the broodbox which had a swarm in. (From bottom up I had

• Closed floor
  Super
  Queen excluder
  1" eke with entrance
  Brood box
  Crownboard and roof).

It saved having to feed the swarm to get comb drawn well and avoided me having to do anything with the set honey. A couple of weeks later, the super was empty and it could be removed;
I am pretty confident that your bees will take up any food that's underneath them - provided it's not too late in the season.

Thanks for that, I will give it go depending upon how much I do or don’t get this year, obviously I wouldn’t expect to do this with a weak colony, if it fails I do have a large honey warmer to soften the frames up a little worst case.

[NigelP]

It saved having to feed the swarm to get comb drawn well and avoided me having to do anything with the set honey. A couple of weeks later, the super was empty and it could be removed;
I am pretty confident that your bees will take up any food that's underneath them - provided it's not too late in the season.

Good to know Adam. My only concern is yours was a summer swarm, autumn is different.

[Alfred]

Adam did you open the cappings?
I get the need for a qx but why the eke/ entrance?

[AdamD]

Alfred,
Some of the cappings were open I expect, some not. The eke and entrance is to stop bees from going up and down through the excluder during foraging and the distance makes the honey below seem further from the brood nest too so it's more likely to be removed - otherwise it's just a bee-space away. The entrance, I guess, would also help with defending the colony/food - bees usually have the brood and guard bees near the entrance with the food above and behind so it can be easily defended.

[thewoodgatherer]

Alfred,
Some of the cappings were open I expect, some not. The eke and entrance is to stop bees from going up and down through the excluder during foraging and the distance makes the honey below seem further from the brood nest too so it's more likely to be removed - otherwise it's just a bee-space away. The entrance, I guess, would also help with defending the colony/food - bees usually have the brood and guard bees near the entrance with the food above and behind so it can be easily defended.

I like that, sounds all highly logical although bees as we know don’t always do what they are supposed to. I will try that and also maybe one or two straight floor with entrance hives and see what the difference is if any.

[Patrick]

Good plan.

It’s only sometimes by trying you find out. Thing to bear in mind is - as already coined - bees do nothing invariably.

It’s like uniting - I always used to unite by the newspaper method and one day at the end of the season just got on with it, smoked them quite heavily and just plonked the queenless hive on top. No bother.

Have since not bothered with the paper for autumn unites and just smoked. Now I have said that, sure as eggs are eggs next time I do it all hell will break loose.