Bee Science with Dewey Caron: Removing Honey Supers
In this sixth installment of Bee Science with Dr. Dewey Caron, Dewey turns attention to one of the final major management tasks of the summer beekeeping season: removing honey supers and preparing honey for extraction and storage.
Building on the previous discussion about timely supering, Dewey explains why proper honey super removal is every bit as important as adding supers at the right time. He emphasizes that beekeepers should only remove honey when they are fully prepared to process it, reminding listeners that bees know how to protect their honey stores far better than we do. Delays between harvest and extraction can lead to quality issues, robbing, fermentation concerns, and unnecessary management complications.
Dewey reviews the concepts of over-supering and under-supering, discusses colony space management as nectar flows begin to decline, and explains the importance of monitoring whether bees have fully occupied newly added supers. He also addresses the role of queen excluders, baiting supers, and ensuring colonies are actively using available storage space.
The episode provides a detailed overview of the primary methods used to remove bees from honey supers, including bee escape boards, fume boards, bee blowers, and the traditional bounce-and-brush technique. Dewey explains the advantages and limitations of each approach and discusses situations where one method may be preferred over another.
Additional topics include handling brood discovered in supers, preventing robbing behavior during harvest, managing partially capped honey, using refractometers to measure moisture content, and understanding the risks of storing unprocessed honey supers. Dewey concludes with practical recommendations to help beekeepers protect honey quality while preparing colonies for the transition toward fall management.
Links and references mentioned in this episode
- Best Ways to Get Bees Out of Your Supers: https://www.betterbee.com/instructions-and-resources/how-to-get-bees-out-of-honey-supers.asp
Three Useful Videos
- BobBinnie: How We Remove Bees From Honey Supers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ldD3cNGung
- Kamon Reynolds: Removing bees from Honey supers FAST: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipfvW-2t_HA
- David Burns: How To Remove Supers Without Crowding Your Bees. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9NzCcIg0c
Two Useful, Timely Articles
- Charlotte (Carolina Bees). How to Store Honey Supers With Drawn Comb: https://carolinahoneybees.com/storing-honey-supers/
- Richard Wahl Off the Wahl beekeeping. Bee Culture September 2025, Harvesting Honey: https://beeculture.com/off-the-wahl-beekeeping-44/
- Betterbee on Robbing: https://www.betterbee.com/instructions-and-resources/identifying-preventing-hive-robbing.asp?srsltid=AfmBOor-Bzp5yPXnEZXuHxkGypc5tUQaXRECY6ZFwlEiKITNlR8GKMNJ
- Robbing Behavior in Honey Bees: https://ask.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/IN1064
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PhD, Professor Emeritus, Author
Dr Dewey M. Caron is Emeritus Professor of Entomology & Wildlife Ecology, Univ of Delaware, & Affiliate Professor, Dept Horticulture, Oregon State University. He had professional appointments at Cornell (1968-70), Univ of Maryland (1970-81) and U Delaware 1981-2009, serving as entomology chair at the last 2. A sabbatical year was spent at the USDA Tucson lab 1977-78 and he had 2 Fulbright awards for projects in Panama and Bolivia with Africanized bees.
Following retirement from Univ of Delaware in 2009 he moved to Portland, OR to be closer to grandkids.
Dewey was very active with EAS serving many positions including President and Chairman of the Board and Master beekeeper program developer and advisor. Since being in the west, he has served as organizer of a WAS annual meeting and President of WAS in Salem OR in 2010, and is currently member-at-large to the WAS Board. Dewey represents WAS on Honey Bee Health Coalition.
In retirement he remains active in bee education, writing for newsletters, giving Bee Short Courses, assisting in several Master beekeeper programs and giving presentations to local, state and regional bee clubs. He is author of Honey Bee Biology & Beekeeping, major textbook used in University and bee association bee courses and has a new bee book The Complete Bee Handbook published by Rockridge Press in 2020. Each April he does Pacific Northwest bee survey of losses and management and a pollination economics survey of PNW beekeepers.
