Supers come in three varieties; deep, regular, and nuc. Deep and regular supers are, in cross section, about 14 inches by 20". A deep super will be about 12" deep. A regular super will be 4 to 6 inches deep. Nucs are a special kind of deep super being only about 1/3 the breadth. The actual dimensions of the super is not critical. What is critical is how the space inside the box is divided. Frames must be flush with the top of the box and extend to within 3/8 of an inch of the bottom of the box. There must be enough frames in the box to divide the space equally in 1 and 1/8 inch increments. Wider increments are possible but, will result in excessive burr and brace comb.

Deep supers are used for the brood box and for the colony's food supply. There will be one super for each. The bees will keep their brood in the lower super and store honey in the supers above. A deep super having 10 frames will contain about 75 to 100 pounds of honey.

The nice thing about honeybees is that they will produce far more honey than what they need for any given year. Regular supers are stacked above the initial deep supers as the honeybees fill them up. The obvious advantage of the reguglar super is that, when filled, it is easier to harvest being of less weight.

A nuc is used to house a new colony. Too much space in a box will stress a colony, possibly causing a swarm to be thrown off instead of endearing a new colony to its new home. Above a nuc will be a feeder box of similar cross section. In the feeder box will be placed either filled honeycomb or "feeders". A feeder is a reservoir with some method to keep the bees from falling in and drowning. Feeders are filled with either honey of a solution of cane sugar. There is no reason other than cost that fructose could not be used.

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