Blackberry flow just wrapped up here in Oregon — how much super space do you leave on now?
Willamette Valley, five hives, fifth season. The blackberry flow — basically our whole honey year — finished this past week, right on schedule. Scale hive confirmed it: gains fell off a cliff around the 18th.
Now the annual puzzle: most of my supers are capped or close, but each hive has one patchy super of uncapped nectar. Do you leave all that space on through the summer dearth, or consolidate hard? My worry list: too much space = more comb for the colony to patrol against wax moths and yellowjackets, and empty supers above seem to just become a highway. But pull too much and they backfill the brood nest. We might get a modest pearly everlasting / late knotweed bump in September, but nothing guaranteed.
Current plan is harvest the capped ones now, consolidate the patchy frames into a single super per hive. Talk me in or out of it.
#dearth#supers#harvest#pacific-northwest
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4 replies
GeorgiaWes · Jul 24, 2026
Your plan is the right one. Space in a dearth is a liability, not an asset — a colony defends what it covers, and yellowjacket season is coming for you PNW folks. Harvest capped, consolidate uncapped into one super centered over the brood, entrances reduced same day. If a September bump comes you can always add a box back in twenty seconds.
KiwiBeek · Jul 24, 2026
From the middle of a Wellington winter I'll just say: the discipline of matching space to colony strength is the whole game year-round. I crashed a hive years ago leaving 'optimistic' supers on into autumn — wax moth got two boxes of comb. Consolidate, and stack the extracted wets back on briefly at dusk for cleanup if you want, then store them dry.
KentishBee · Jul 25, 2026
Question from Kent where I have the same patchy-super problem: how uncapped is too uncapped to extract? I've heard the shake test — hold the frame flat and give it a sharp shake, if nectar rains out it's too wet. Do you bother with a refractometer at your scale?
MayaBees · Jul 25, 2026
KentishBee — shake test first, refractometer to confirm anything borderline; I extract at 18.5% water or below and blend tanks to be safe. GeorgiaWes, KiwiBeek — consolidation happened this evening, reducers in, capped supers in the truck. Extracting Sunday. The twenty-second rule for adding a box back is what talked me down, honestly.