How long can you leave full supers on a hive?

Both hives are heaving with bees – shedloads, to use the technical term – and very defensive. Clearing the supers with Porter or Canadian bee escapes will be a slow process, and even then there will probably be quite a few left behind.

Instead, can I leave the supers on the hives until the number of bee starts to decline? Then, clearing them could be a doddle. How long can I leave them? Until the end of August? Later?

How long is a piece of string?

[Actually, the answer is the cube root of a handful. See below]

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