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More advanced beekeeping discussion forum.
 #6126  by Patrick
 31 Mar 2020, 16:09
Actually Jazz you raise a good point about the rolling. The act of cutting back the face of the comb parallel whilst extracting allows you to put the super combs back in any order and maintain a workable bee space between them before the bees draw them out to bee width between opposing faces. What you don't want is two raised areas coinciding so they can't work it.

I am not sure I have an issue with rolling in supers as such. Once my empty super is on the only next time the frames come out is to extract them, they will have been emptied of bees just prior to that thanks to the rhombus escapes.
 #6127  by Japey Edge
 31 Mar 2020, 17:06
On Abelo boxes the plastic frame runner is lipped, but I guess you could add castellated spacers easily enough.

Patrick - how do you know your supers are ready then, do you not even lift an end frame to make sure it's fully capped?
 #6128  by NigelP
 31 Mar 2020, 17:34
The standard castellations available don't fit in the abelo supers, they are too long. I've tried cutting and adapting a 10 frame castellation but it just doesn't work, don't know why as they take 11 sn4 super frames. You just end up with one frame pushed hard against one side no matter how you work it.
Hence I space by eye. It's not difficult and the bees soon propolise everything together so the frames don't budge.
Major problem I have found is when brushing bees off full supers at out apiaries when In a rush and then the frames rub together on the journey back.....and then I need to take hosepipe to back of truck.
 #6129  by NigelP
 31 Mar 2020, 17:37
sorry duplicate..
 #6131  by AndrewLD
 31 Mar 2020, 20:07
Patrick wrote:
31 Mar 2020, 16:09
I am not sure I have an issue with rolling in supers as such.
It is easy enough to check that drawn frames have enough room between them and I think you can do it by eye as Nigel suggests. You can never get them back in the order they came out.
But having said that, I have a real issue with rolling bees. I avoid it because I am always mindful that the colony seems to remember rolling and the reception I get the next time in reflects the experience they had the last time I was there.
 #6132  by Patrick
 31 Mar 2020, 22:23
So after extraction, the cleaned ends are refitted and any that were on narrow and drawn out combs are refitted with wide. As you say Andrew, they are all back in boxes and briefly checked by eye that no high areas correspond with its neighbour. Simples. I know some folk are very good and ensure the same supers go back on the same hives for bio security but never quite got round to it.

Jazz - I am nearly always up against it time wise doing inspections, progress with filling supers is simply judged by their weight whilst being removed, checking the brood chamber is my main purpose. Not saying checking progress in supers wouldn’t be quite fun. If all the boxes are heavy and the flow is going well I add new supers directly above the QX whilst reassembling ( I hear the sound of someone whistling doubtfully surely 😉? ) and so first end May extraction just take the top ones and leave the last one with whatever is on it to tide the bees over June- I don’t get much OSR round here usually. The June Gap is often a problem created by beekeepers taking away all the stores whilst the brood chamber is full of just brood and scant honey - it’s why the bigger ones often crash quickest.

The already filled top boxes will all be capped or at least ripened by then. You can see the cappings easily enough from between the seams anyway and if it is groaningly heavy, it’s fine.

Second end of season extraction they all come off. It is quite normal to have some filled but not capped but the old shake test quickly reassures it’s ripened okay and when amalgamated with so much already capped the combined moisture content is never appreciably raised anywhere near 20%. You can to an extent ensure capped combs by providing more supers at the beginning of the summer and less at the end. I am happy for them to store surplus in the brood chamber in July if it means I can extract fewer but full and capped supers. What I certainly don’t want is dozens of half filled combs to have to deal with.

If it doesn’t warm up soon it will be an academic problem however..
 #6138  by AdamD
 01 Apr 2020, 13:07
AndrewLD wrote:
31 Mar 2020, 14:50
Please be right! I am hoping that there is something you can't do with an Abelo :D
As for rolling, surely that is why you put 11 frames in plus a dummy so that you can take out the dummy and open up a gap before lifting the frames, especially if they are hoffmans (so much less risk compared to spacers)?
To check that a super is full, it usually gets fairly empty of bees once the honey has been sealed over as there's no need for them to be there. And if the outside frames are sealed, then the inner ones definitely will be. If the outside frames are not sealed, there;'s a good chance there is more than a bee space between them as the bees haven't finished their job, so the chance of damaging bees should not be too great in my experience. Even with castellations.

Although I do space by eye on occasions (quite easy when you have a well-spaced super underneath) the frames tend to slide when you are carrying them to the extraction shed/kitchen. The castellations do hold the frames quite tightly. (And with sharp corners, can cut your hand if you are clumsy).
 #6160  by Patrick
 03 Apr 2020, 23:02
Was very belatedly cleaning up supers and quality checking overwintered combs this afternoon. A few boxes to melt down. Occurred to me Jazz when I said I don’t go into supers to check progress that Is not entirely true.

Towards the end of the main flow rather than adding extra supers I sometimes will move unfilled or uncapped outside frames to the centre of the super and put the full combs from the centre on the outside. It just ensures you get full capped combs throughout.
 #6162  by MickBBKA
 04 Apr 2020, 01:54
Always check your 4 centre super frames, sometimes the little darlings will build queen cells in there and move some eggs up. An unknown capped queen cell will cause a swarm you never knew about until you go and find an empty super and half your bees missing and they will tear that cell down before you see it.

Cheers, Mick.
 #6163  by AdamD
 04 Apr 2020, 09:43
You confirm what I have seen Mick, that bees will move eggs around although some say that they don't. I have had the odd queencell above the 'excluder but I don't think I have had one go to maturity.