no honey in supers

[Diana K]

Our hives have two deeps for brood, a queen excluder, and one shallow super.  The bees are filling the top brood deep with honey instead of filling the super and it seems the queen is running out of space to lay eggs. Is it okay to take some of the honey out of the brood trays?  Can you do that if there is both honey and capped brood on the tray?  If yes, then do you just scrape off the honey?  Or do you spin it?  We have wax foundation in the brood deeps.  Can you scrape and/or spin those?

Diana

[YDK]

I have experienced similar behavior in my hives and I would like to see how other members handle this. 

That said, I have seen this one recommendation to handle these frames  - add an excluder on top of 2 brood boxes and then move this frame(s) with honey + brood in the 3rd box on top of that excluder. Make sure there is no queen on that frame when you move. Once the brood is hatched, bees will clean and use brood cells for honey. Of course this requires a 3rd deep box instead of medium/shallow super. 

On Mon, May 4, 2026 at 8:08 PM Diana K <dianak...@gmail.com> wrote:

Our hives have two deeps for brood, a queen excluder, and one shallow super.  The bees are filling the top brood deep with honey instead of filling the super and it seems the queen is running out of space to lay eggs. Is it okay to take some of the honey out of the brood trays?  Can you do that if there is both honey and capped brood on the tray?  If yes, then do you just scrape off the honey?  Or do you spin it?  We have wax foundation in the brood deeps.  Can you scrape and/or spin those?

Diana

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[Bees & Beeks]

That’s what I do when I run all deeps - switch empty box with honey box.  It can be done with medium super too.  I did so to get brood laid in medium frames for someone I help manage medium boxes for.  Your honey box will be deep and you’ll have both deep and medium frames with brood.  

If you have any capped honey frames in the deep boxes, you can take those out.  Put in empty frames in the middle of 2nd brood box so bees can build out wax and Queen can lay without re-arranging your hive configuration, just the frames.  

Bee Kind,

Mimi 

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On May 4, 2026, at 8:33 PM, YDK <emai...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Sung Lee]

We usually joke about saying bees do not read books. Yours is typical case if that.

There are few options. 

When we have two deeps for brood means you want growth that increases number of bees that lead to more production of honey. Most cases. 

Was honey super frames are also wax foundations? drawn combs? 

If they were just foundations it may take longer to store honey especially there is queen excluder. 

Deep frames are mixed with honey and broods as you mentioned and running out space. Since there are capped honey on top part of the frames bees may not travel above the excluder. This what i would do.

Move the second deep box to the top and insert honey super in the middle. You can do with or without queen excluder. 

With QE- make sure the queen is below the QE. As capped broods emerge they will work around in the deep box. Since there is new frames in between the two deeps it will force bees work on these medium frames(you said shallow but i believe it is medium. Shallow frames are mostly used for comb honey). 

Now here it gets more complicated. When all the capped brood emerged two thing will happen.  1. Bees start to fill the brood section with nectar meaning eventually it will be capped honey. As soon as you see nectars on brood section then you can remove the QE. You don't need to wait till all honey is capped. It will accelerate the honey storing.

2. Or Bees will clean up brood section for next round of eggs. Since the queen is below QE there won't be any eggs. In this case you have to wait even longer for honey store. Or  Maybe at this point you can extract all the honey and put it back at the bottom of the hive for them to start over. 

Another twist.

Keep the queen above the QE which is deep box on the top which is box #3 in this case.

You will start seeing nectar storing in the medium box in the middle. Keep it for 2 to 3 weeks. Then switch box 2 and 3. This will be back to original setting. And don't need QE. By then there are room on deep box. Workers start finishing honey super. At this point if the hive is too much of bees then it could trigger swarm intention.  Then you might wanna add another medium either between #1and,#2, or between #2 and#3. Drawn comb frames helps to deter swarm intention. 

Without QE- you can also try without QE by switching #2(deep) and #3(medium). Since there are honey stored on top of deep frames as broods emerge those cells automatically used to store nectars because there are upper part of the hive. As nectar is coming in they will tend to store here. Sometimes queen lay eggs here too. But many times i have tried it worked fine. Ended up 50 to 60 lbs plus of honey. It is  very heavy to lift for inspections. 

There are so many different way to handle the situations. Don't be afraid to try new and different way. 

Enjoy.

Sung Lee The Bee Charmer 

On Mon, May 4, 2026, 8:07 PM Diana K <dianak...@gmail.com> wrote:

Our hives have two deeps for brood, a queen excluder, and one shallow super.  The bees are filling the top brood deep with honey instead of filling the super and it seems the queen is running out of space to lay eggs. Is it okay to take some of the honey out of the brood trays?  Can you do that if there is both honey and capped brood on the tray?  If yes, then do you just scrape off the honey?  Or do you spin it?  We have wax foundation in the brood deeps.  Can you scrape and/or spin those?

Diana

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[Gerald Przybylski]

It's part of spring management to (at least occasionally) look at all
the brood frames, and if necessary, reorganize the brood boxes.

What you are describing in your brood boxes seems to be what we call
"honey-bound." Not enough empty drawn comb for the queen to lay eggs in.
If not dealt with it can be a disaster for the colony.
What I found (surprisingly) this spring  is that brood boxes filled up
with frames full of pollen.  15 or 16 in two medium brood boxes,
with the bees compensating by moving some of the brood rearing up into
the boxes we wanted them to put honey in.

In both cases the goal is to move the brood rearing into the bottom one
or two boxes by moving the honey or pollen frames up into the boxes above.
It's OK to move a honey or pollen frame that has a small patch of brood
up into the supers. House bees will care for them attracted by the
pheromones.
(when  and if they fill them with honey you can harvest the honey and
either renew the foundation or remove the pollen, if they're plugged out
with pollen)
Put the nice brood frames in the middle of the bottom box(es)  and flank
them by drawn comb.
If there are fewer than 7 brood frames, run one brood box until they
expand to 8 or 9 brood frames.
When there are 8 or more brood frames in one box, reorganize them into
the center of the bottom two boxes, and flank them with drawn comb
if you think there will be enough nectar flow to fuel the expansion.
If the dearth is just around the corner, they probably won't expand any
more, so leave them be.
Nectar flow depends a LOT on your neighborhood,  the forage sources in
the surrounding mile radius, and the density of beekeepers competing for
it.
Neighborhoods in north Oakland and Berkeley are oversubscribed with
beekeepers, so the competition will be fierce.
If you have a neighborhood to yourself, your bees may find enough food
to continue expanding.

That's my 2¢
jerry

[Diana Kitajima]

Thank you, everyone, for your support. We will keep trying to nudge our bees into filling the honey supers. We have the 9 inch deeps for brood and 6 inch supers. The 9 inch are wax foundation and the 6 inch boxes have plastic foundation. So, it isn’t an option to move deep frames up into our supers, unless we make a 9 inch super.
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> On May 4, 2026, at 11:01 PM, Gerald Przybylski <gtp0...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> It's part of spring management to (at least occasionally) look at all the brood frames, and if necessary, reorganize the brood boxes.

> --
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[Bees & Beeks]

That’s why many beeks run all mediums or all deeps. I was in process of moving to all deeps when I acquired a client who used all mediums, so I’m still using both.


Sent from my iPhone

> On May 6, 2026, at 7:41 AM, Diana Kitajima <dianak...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Thank you, everyone, for your support. We will keep trying to nudge our bees into filling the honey supers. We have the 9 inch deeps for brood and 6 inch supers. The 9 inch are wax foundation and the 6 inch boxes have plastic foundation. So, it isn’t an option to move deep frames up into our supers, unless we make a 9 inch super.

> To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/the-alameda-county-beekeepers-association/A60A35B6-849E-4A7A-B316-2A768A6941EB%40gmail.com.

[Catherine Edwards]

Take out the queen excluder and see if you can borrow a drawn frame with nectar in it and place it in the middle of the medium super. You will probably get some brood in the medium too but you will get honey. You can harvest the honey frames in the deeps that don't have brood. You can spin those carefully.

Catherine Edwards

(510)421-7206

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[Catherine Edwards]

But don't leave empty spaces. Put new frames in the boxes to replace those taken out, then switch them back after you harvest, which you should do in a timely manner. 

Catherine Edwards

(510)421-7206