As part of preparing the ranch apiary for winter, we removed the honey supers (the third box) from each hive that had one. This will make it easier for the hives to stay warm in a smaller space.
What did we do with the extra honey?
The super that had the most honey was transferred to the third weakest hive to increase its chances of survival this winter. The hive we took it from has plenty of brood and stored honey in the remaining two boxes.
Why did we give it to the third weakest? Because we chose to combine the two weakest hives to make a stronger hive for the cold months. Neither by itself would have survived.
Now normally this would have involved killing one queen when merging the two hives. However, in this case, one of the queens was missing. We believe she died recently because the hive had built four queen cells for potential replacements.
As for the supers that didn’t have much honey and just a little comb, we left those open near the entrances of the hives they were taken from so that the hives can retrieve and use these resources. In a week or two after they’ve had the opportunity to do this, we’ll pull the empty supers from the apiary and store them in the ranch barn until spring of next year.