PropolisRafa · Minas Gerais, BR · Honey · Sep 23, 2026
Eucalyptus flow starting in Minas Gerais — how are you supering Africanized colonies without a war?
Spring check-in from Minas Gerais. The eucalyptus plantations around my apiary are opening and my twelve Africanized colonies have exploded in the last three weeks — the brood boxes are wall to wall and the first supers are already filling.
My problem is not the bees making honey, it's me getting supers on without turning the whole apiary into a war zone. Our bees don't take manipulation well: last spring I supered on a hot afternoon and had two colonies boiling out for an hour, and one of them absconded a week later. This year I'm trying early morning while it's cool, smoke first and wait two minutes, supers pre-loaded on the truck, one hive at a time, out in under three minutes each, and I'm giving space early so they never feel crowded.
How do the other tropical and subtropical people handle this? Do you use excluders with defensive stock? And does anyone add two supers at once to halve the number of visits?
#africanized-bees#eucalyptus#supering#spring-management
▲ 1 votes
💬 1 replies
NalediBees · Sep 23, 2026
Mpumalanga, spring here too, and scutellata are our version of the same character. Your list is right; I'd add: work with the wind at your back so the smoke goes over the hive, and never work a hive that's been bothered by something else that day — a honey badger visit or a neighbour's mower means I come back tomorrow. I put two supers on at once on the strongest colonies, yes. Fewer visits matters more than the tidy 'one at a time' rule with these bees. No excluder; my strongest colonies would rather abscond than be blocked.
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