Nectar Incoming - Honey Supers

From spring into summer is a great time for honey bees! Food sources are everywhere and easily accessible. The queen is laying vigorously to grow the colony, nurse bees are raising those eggs into new bees, and foragers are out collecting nectar and pollen. It is estimated that a single bee is responsible for between a fraction of a teaspoon to a tablespoon of honey in its lifetime. It really is a team effort!

All of the resources being brought back to the hive require storage. Eggs, honey, and pollen all require their own cells. A beehive is really just a giant clutter-free organization system. (We might be able to learn a thing or two!) Beekeepers add honey supers to a hive, above the brood boxes, when the nectar flow is strong. Honey supers and brood boxes can be different sizes or they can be the exact same. The difference is in how the bees use them. Bees keep brood on the bottom floors of the hive while honey gets stored above. A typical brood set up might consist of one or two deep (the largest size) boxes. Honey supers can also be deep boxes but a full deep can weigh 80 pounds. More commonly, beekeepers will use a medium (middle size) box or a shallow (smallest size) box. This helps the beekeeper’s back!

It is not uncommon for established hives to grow by 2 or 3 boxes in the spring as the workers store and ripen nectar into honey. Surprisingly, the queen will remain below the honey supers with no barrier in place. This keeps the brood and honey separate which helps during the honey harvest. In other cases, a queen excluder might be used to make sure the queen does not end up laying eggs between honey cells. In any case, providing space for the bees each spring is one of the important duties of a beekeeper to prevent swarming, provide space for honey, and ensure the hive has room to expand.