Subject: How do I reduce an over abundant hive?

From: [email-masked] (David MacFawn - Sun NC Development Center)
Date: 20 Apr 1994 18:34:53 GMT

My packages bees from last year have increased in volume exponentally
They are already 6 hives high and full to the brim.  My buddy Jordan
Schwartz who lives 1 block away and just started 2 new hives with
package bees (initial setup this last weekend).  Can anyone recommend a
way(s) to pass some of this overflow onto him?  I would still like to
have a good honey harvest but just can't handle another hive in my urban
kingdom. 
(Last year was my first year for beekkeeping so I'm still a major 
novice.) 

Thanks
Teri

You can do several things.  You can split your hive and give him either some frames 
with brood or a super or two.  The is called equalization.  A series of articles by 
a deceased 
bee research by the name Farr sp? was published in the American Bee Journal (ABJ) 
last year.  To combine supers, place a layer of newspaper between the existing hive 
and the super being added.  By the time the bees eat their way through the paper, 
they will accept each other.  Be sure that  you keep your queen though, i.e. she is 
not in the super that you give your friend...if you do give away your queen, the 
bees will raise another queen if they have fertilized worker eggs less than 12-36 
hours old.  If two queens end up in the same hive, they will fight it out and 
the strongest one will survive.  If you want to add frames from your overflowing 
hive to your friends hive, you can spray the bees on each frame with sugar syrup 
and the bees will accept each other.  

Take Care, Dave MacFawn
For those of your who do not know me, I am a master beekeeper in Raleigh, 
North Carolina.  I published a series of 4 articles in ABJ last year on business 
plans, financial analysis of beekeeping operations, and analyzing the affect 
of imported honey.  I only keeps bees as a hobby with only 15 hives.

---

From: [email-masked] (David MacFawn - Sun NC Development Center)
Date: 22 Apr 1994 15:29:11 GMT

Michael, It sounds like you have a super or two of honey to 
take off.  Congratulations!!

Just FYI, I guess some beehive terminology is in order.  

A hive consists of a brood chamber and supers stacked on top of the brood chamber.  
The brood chamber may be the deep equipment, a medium depth equipment (6 5/8), or 
the shallow equipment...the brood chamber is just whatever equipment the queen has 
laid eggs in/raising brood in.  Most beekeepers use the deep equipment for the 
brood chamber and stack the medium or shallow depth equipment/supers on top of 
the brood chamber.  Many beekeepers use two deeps for the brood chamber and 
stack additional supers on top of the two deeps. A strong hive like you have 
certainly will fill two deeps up with brood.  A super is generally just whatever 
equipment, be it deep, medium or shallow equipment, that is stacked on top of the 
brood chamber equipment.

I normally use the deep as the brood chamber and either one or two medimums on top 
of that.  As my older deep equipment wears out, I plan on replacing all my 
deep equipment and also shallow supers with all medium depth equipment for interchangeability

Take Care, Dave M.