# General beekeeping > Starting out >  advice

## alec

Hi I am a beginner in the hobby and would appreciate some advice on the best way to manipulate a colony, last autumn I acquired a hive it consisted of a brood box and one super no excluder between, I opened it for the first time yesterday and found the super to be totally full of honey and five frames in one end of  the brood box were the same the rest have brood and eggs. How would you recommend I proceed with this hive or just leave it alone.

 Thanks Regards

  Alec.

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## Jon

If you fed sugar syrup in the autumn, the super is likely full of it. If you didn't, you could take it off and extract it if the stores have not crystallized.
If stores are solid you could save them to feed back to bees in a time of famine.
Just make sure you know where the queen is when you do any manipulations.
I would put a queen excluder between the brood box and the super but make sure the queen is in the brood box before you do this.

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## alec

> If you fed sugar syrup in the autumn, the super is likely full of it. If you didn't, you could take it off and extract it if the stores have not crystallized.
> If stores are solid you could save them to feed back to bees in a time of famine.
> Just make sure you know where the queen is when you do any manipulations.
> I would put a queen excluder between the brood box and the super but make sure the queen is in the brood box before you do this.



Hi Jon thanks for your advice appreciate your reply and will give it a try.

 Kind Regards Alec.

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## Foster331

Back in 2014, I started beekeeping as a hobby. And to be very honest it was the toughest thing I've ever done. Was unfamiliar with many things as a newbie. But hunting is my passion. Have a large collection of rifles, knives, and red dot sight.

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## Jamestaylor

I did an inspection on hives 4 and 1, I stopped because my mom was getting stung, about 10 minutes later I noticed that on hive 3, Which doesn't have many bees, That there was a pile of bees on the front of hive 3. Now they are traveling from hive to hive. I checked all my hives and the population looks the right for each of my hives. How do I figure out if they swarmed? Also, my neighbor has bees, so it could be his, and if they are his how do I catch them to give them back?

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## Adam

You'll have to look for queencells in each hive to see the status.
If bees are travelling from one hive to another (to hive 3 with dead bees outside) then that hive is probably being robbed. You can check which hive the robbers are coming from if youa re not sure by sprinking flour or powdered sugar on the bees as they leave the robbed hive - and see where they return to.

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