Leave partial supers ?

[malabarchillin]

I live in Central Fla along east coast. Only my second beek winter. Winters are usually pretty mild and bees fly most days. I have 5   1st year hives. They have mostly backfilled their deeps (read that should have a lot of stores). I do not want to chance feeding later so I also wanted to leave perhaps additional 5 med frames of honey on each hive. I do not want to leave empty drawn comb for wax moths. I do intend to spray my combs after harvest with BT. I am thinking about leaving 5 empty (not even foundation) frames so my 5 honey frames do not move around as much in the supers if I still need to inspect (Florida).
The question is : Is it a problem leaving supers half empty with mild winters ? If there are no flows then wild comb should be at a minimum ?
Thanks
Mike

[Brian D. Bray]

In my area I wouldn't advise putting a partial super over a wintering hive.  But in Florida, where winters are mild and there is usually a source of nectar year around it is less problematic.  Tropical areas don't have to overwinter and the bees can forage and have honey harvest year around.  Florida is at least semi-tropical so the leaving the super on might work.  Understudy has more experience with this since he practically lives in the Keys.

[rdy-b]

you are speaking of Honey suppers -if they are white wax-(never had any brood reared in them)-then no need to worry about wax moths -they wont infest white wax-which is why my honey suppers are devoted only to honey-around here i just leave the partaly filled suppers out for a day and the bees rob back the honey-RDY-B

[Understudy]

Ahh yes the fine art of beekeeping in Florida. Makes it very different than beekeeping almost any place else. Now you are not quite SoFla but you are central so rules are not that different. And while the flow is not as heavy it does exist. And in your case you can start catching the orange blossom. November through June is technically the citrus blossom flow. Note the season is dependent on the variety of citrus. Okay maybe there are no orange groves near you. That is okay. All those farmers up north are putting stuff up for winter. Down south they are getting everything in the ground. So watermelon, squash, strawberries, peppers, eggplant, and many others are going to start blooming soon if not already.

Also now a lot of the native plant life is going into bloom mode now. While it is not as heavy as a spring flow there is stuff out there. If your bees do well you can pull in December or January. Keep an eye on those bees. A late season freeze can be a bummer and change everything. But if there is no quick freeze you to can be sitting in shorts drinking frozen margaritas and pulling honey while your friends up north are shoveling snow.

Leave your supers on. Let them bring stuff in. If they are not dealing well you can feed them sugar water.

Sincerely,
Brendhan