after harvest ?

[rgy]

I harvested my honey the other day and the hives are very heavy with bees.  I am planning on leaving them with the two brood boxes and getting them ready for winter, do you think they will swarm now since there are so many bees or are they more likely to get ready for winter themselves?

also I am going to put the two supers back on for them to clean, should I put both on at the same time and over or under inner cover?

[Nyleve]

I'm also very interested in answers to this. I harvested one super of honey (the one with what I was afraid was drone brood) about 2 or 3 weeks ago. I didn't uncap the drone cells when extracting the honey and they stayed capped. It was suggested that I put that super back onto the hive as another brood box - so UNDER the queen excluder. There's one super on top of the queen excluder which I may or may not get another small harvest from.

SO now I have 3 brood boxes and one honey super above an excluder. What do I do with all this to prepare for winter? As the OP said - there are A LOT of bees in there! Should I remove all but two brood boxes? I will have a look into the hive maybe next week to see what they're doing in there.

[kathyp]

you are farther north than i, and i wouldn't overwinter with three deeps.  three mediums would be fine. BUT, you have some time.  you can remove a box in another month or two...just pick a day that's warm enough for them to fly.  you can pull a box if it's just honey and feed it back in the spring, or you can re-arrange frames so that you have things the way you want them.

don't rush.  wait for the brood production to reduce and keep an eye on the weather! 

[AllenF]

Here in Ga, we have pulled the honey supers off in July.   There will be a little honey made on Goldenrod.  But right now the bees are crowded but with no honey coming in.   I can not remember a swarm this late from any of my hives.   But I ain't looking either.  I figure if they will swarm, so what?   Just as long as they can requeen themselves.   A fresh new queen going into the fall for next year.   

[mikecva]

I sit mine back in for cleaning one or two at a time, under the inner cover, for 24-36 hours (depending on how good I was during extracting.) Then I move the supers outside the hive, standing on end on the outer cover for final cleaning and drying (~24 hours)

 I then store the supers on plastic 6-8 high, put 3-4 table spoons of moth crystals ***NOT moth balls*** on a paper plate on the top super and cover the stack with plastic and a board (to make almost air tight) - let the supers air out for a week before reusing in the spring.   -Mike

[buzzbee]

If the nectar flow is over,the bees will likely not swarm,and the population will decrease with a lack of nectar as brood rearing will be reduced too.