Under supering

[Bsweet]

Anyone now or ever under super? and if so what are your feelings. Jim


Under supering is..... instead of adding a second (empty) super to the top of the full super you place the empty super under the full one on top between the upper hive body and full supper. Jim

[pistolpete]

I call it bottom supering.  I think that it's the better method because the bees can draw and fill a bottom super more efficiently.  There are some drawbacks: 1) I run all deeps and when you already have 2 supers on, that's a lot of heavy lifting.   2)if you don't run a queen excluder the queen will often lay a bit in the first super before she is pushed back down by honey stores.  By top supering you get nice clean comb free of cocoons.

[blueblood]

If you run a few super frames with out foundation it will reduce some of the foot traffic on your beautiful capping.  Personally, I like to eat my comb honey that is close to pristine.

[tecumseh]

some times the language of beekeeping is so confusing.... under supering... bottom supering.... < is it any wonder that the novice beekeeper is often times confused?

I have been using some under supering/bottom supering here this year and it seems to work exceptionally well.  I did this with box of new frames and foundation and this appears to get the hive working on drawing the bottom box of foundation much much quicker than if you top super.  in top supering it appears that once the lower box has been pulled and capped the bees are quite hesitant to move above the solid honey cap.  at this point I plan to do more of this in the future.

[tbonekel]

This sounds interesting. As soon as my bees have drawn and filled most of their super, I think I will try to put another super underneath. I will probably place a couple of full frames from the top super in the new bottom super to "help" them. It would make sense that the top super would remain cleaner and maybe have fewer bees when I do remove it for extraction. I understand the "honey dome" thing, but I'm guessing that if you just continue to place boxes on top of the other, there is a definite barrier that the queen would have to cross in order to lay. By placing a super underneath a full one, she would not have that barrier. There would be a better chance of her laying in that new one, right?
 

[blueblood]

My "personal" choice for honey barriers is queen excluders.  Of course, I have drawn comb for my supers and it is easier.  I listen and learn but I will be stubborn on this topic.  I tried no excluder two times.  And, I will forever be done with that idea.  It was an absolute mess in my supers!  Call me a weird cat, but I would rather have no honey than nasty dark super frames from having worker and drone brood in them. 

[brooksbeefarm]

Like blueblood i use excluders, i also have a top entrance on all my hives and for my comb honey i prefer top supering for less tracking, but do both. Jack

[alfredw]

Brooksbeefarm,

Like blueblood i use excluders, i also have a top entrance on all my hives and for my comb honey i prefer top supering for less tracking, but do both. Jack

If you have top entrances and use an excluder how are drones getting out? Do you have an alternate lower entrance? Or a drone escape of some kind?

Alfred

[brooksbeefarm]

I run a top and bottom entrance year round, drones can come and go from both. Jack

[riverbee]

i'll add another term for this.......'reverse supering'............

i think there are some benefits to it jim, i think it depends on your situation.  as tec mentioned the placement of foundation on the bottom of the stack.

myself, i top super most of the time.  i use top and bottom entrances, and like dave i do use an excluder because of the foundation-less frames for comb honey, and like dave, i don't like the queen laying up in the supers.  i only extract once a year, so supers are added as needed, in good years, it is not uncommon for me to have up to 6 supers on, so reverse/bottom supering would be very tedious.  i do keep track of frames being drawn and filled, so will rearrange frames as necessary, or if a flow is waning or a box is being somewhat ignored, i reverse super the box.

[LazyBkpr]

A queen will typically not cross the honey frames, so top supering will in most cases keep her from going up to lay in the new box...  but...  bees will be bees.

[brooksbeefarm]

Like Lazy said,but with top supering with or without an excluder the farther you get from the queens pheromone the bigger chance of having drone brood (laying worker).On a strong hive with 3 to 4 supers on top, i've had drone brood along the bottom of my comb honey supers, very irritating  to find it on a snow white frame of comb honey. :'( Jack