# Newbee?....How many Supers are needed???



## txsteele (Nov 19, 2014)

I'm a new bee keeper....got my first hive in mid April. The colony came to me in a 10 frame Deep (brood box) that was pretty full of brood and some honey. I added one Super shortly after I brought the girls home and that's almost full of honey now.

So.....how many more Supers should I add before I put on the excluder? Is the one 10 frame Super that's on there enough for them or do they need more honey than that?


----------



## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

For get the excluder and add a couple supers to start with.

 Al


----------



## GunMonkeyIntl (May 13, 2013)

If you're sure that the super is full of honey (no brood), you might want to consider adding a second deep for them to build in as a brood box, between the original brood box and super. They will add their own pollen and honey stores to the edges of each frame, and you'll put them to work building up another ten deep frames of comb that they can use to house a bigger colony. 

I think an ideal place to end the season would be a double-deep brood box filled with comb and stores for the winter. That will let them start of next season ready to start rebuilding the stores they used over the winter, then go right into filling those supers for you to use.


----------



## txsteele (Nov 19, 2014)

GunMonkeyIntl said:


> If you're sure that the super is full of honey (no brood), you might want to consider adding a second deep for them to build in as a brood box, between the original brood box and super. They will add their own pollen and honey stores to the edges of each frame, and you'll put them to work building up another ten deep frames of comb that they can use to house a bigger colony.
> 
> I think an ideal place to end the season would be a double-deep brood box filled with comb and stores for the winter. That will let them start of next season ready to start rebuilding the stores they used over the winter, then go right into filling those supers for you to use.



Thanks. That's what I had in mind also but I wanted to hear from someone else also......since this is my first go around.


----------



## SueMc (Jan 10, 2010)

Last year was my first year. Unless you're absolutely sure that you're not going to expand, check some of the packages where you can get bulk supers and frames/foundation. The prices are better if you buy 5 or 10 supers and multiples of frames at a time. Even better prices if you nail together and paint your supers yourself, and very easy.
I was only going to have two hives, then ended up with three nucs from the very beginning, made a successful split this year so now have four hives and adding honey supers faster than I would have guessed.
Bees are like chocolate. You may end up wanting and getting more, more, more!


----------

