Adding a super for brood space: yes or no?

[ksjs]

I got a nuc just under a month ago and transferred it to a hive. The colony has done well (though I have seen what I think is maybe chalk brood so not so sure now) and 5 of the 6 new frames of foundation were drawn out and filled at time of last inspection.

I was advised that as the colony is doing well I should add a super but use this as extra space for brood. This is not the first time I've heard this suggested but it leads me to wonder why national brood boxes are sized as they are i.e. if it's common to do brood and a half why not just make the brood box that size in the first place?

A few questions leading on from this:

1. If I do go down this route, does it not make inspection tricky i.e. there's half your brood sat on the ground as you inspect the main part of the brood?

2. How much space is enough for a colony? Why is one and a half brood boxes enough if one isn't? Why stop at 'only' one and a half?

3. Is the main advantage that the colony will be larger / stronger and therefore more capable in terms of honey production?

4. Does anybody have any strong views one way or the other i.e. providing more brood space really is a good thing or no, it doesn't really matter?

Any thoughts or help much appreciated.

 

[Busybee123]

Hi ksjs,

I would not think you should be considering or needing extra brood space this time of year. Queen should be slowing down laying and brood nest should be getting smaller. You should be able to overwinter the colony on a single brood box.

There is a Jumbo size national brood box that takes 14 x 12 frames that is equivalent to brood and a half, but all in one frame.

The size of brood box required depends on a number of things including:

Strain of bee

How prolific your queen is

Where you are (i.e how far North/South). The further North you are the shorter the active season and the smaller the brood nest maximum size.

 

[Vergilius]

Ksjs,

My bees are fine in single nat, but if you do want to provide a larger brood nest, I would consider switching to 14x12 rather than brood and a half.

Think about it... With brood and a half you are going to be inspecting twice as many frames during swarm season - 11 frame inspections are long enough! To make matters worse, the bees build brace comb in between the boxes which, when it is torn apart, aggravates the bees.

Ben P

 

[oliver90owner]

After reading that, I thought " why was the nuc transferred into a full-sized brood box? There must have been a reason for that action?" Most good bee books cover the pros and cons of the various formats.

1. Yes and no. There is no need to (and good reasons not to) put your box on the ground.

2. Enough is enough. Better chance than zero. Indeed, but you must stop at some point, or no justification for puting them in an enclosure in the first place?

3. No.

4. Difficult one this. The term I would use is 'enough'. My answer would then be a definite yes (or maybe 'no' to your actual wording of the question), it does matter.

Life is a compromise. As such, so is beekeeping if that is part of it. That is why I run 14 x 12s. YMMV.

 

[ksjs]

After reading that, I thought " why was the nuc transferred into a full-sized brood box? There must have been a reason for that action?" Most good bee books cover the pros and cons of the various formats.

1. Yes and no. There is no need to (and good reasons not to) put your box on the ground.

2. Enough is enough. Better chance than zero. Indeed, but you must stop at some point, or no justification for puting them in an enclosure in the first place?

3. No.

4. Difficult one this. The term I would use is 'enough'. My answer would then be a definite yes (or maybe 'no' to your actual wording of the question), it does matter.

Life is a compromise. As such, so is beekeeping if that is part of it. That is why I run 14 x 12s. YMMV.

Reason for transferring to a hive was simply that this is what people do? I assume that the National is sized in a way that combines needs of bees and beeks so when you get a nuc, transfer it to a full size hive. I thought the queen needed more space for laying than provided by a 5 frame nuc.

1. Not necessarily the ground but it has to go somewhere which isn't ideal I guess. Also, are you not significantly cooling the super when outside the hive?

2. OK.

3. So why do it then? Is this to keep queen happy i.e. space to lay?

4. Not exactly black or white is it! I get the impression it's a question of experience. Seems hard for a beginner to assess / know if a queen is running out of space or is prolific etc. I think she's pretty good: I'm pretty sure it'll be 6 frames fully drawn and filled in 4 weeks when I next look (with feeding throughout).

Cheers for help.

 

[Busybee123]

Ben is right - if you need more space than a national brood box then go for 14 x 12 (or one of the other larger formats) instead of brood and a half. Simpler and neater solution and easier to inspect.

Yes, under certain circumstances you need the extra space for the brood nest - for the queen to lay in. If you bees need the extra space and you don't give it to them they'll end up swarming.

It's difficult to know how big a brood chamber you'll need. As a newbee myself, I've gone with the advice of local beeks in my area, who say that in most cases a national brood box is sufficient for the type of bees we have here.

 

[enrico]

if you do go brood and a half or double brood then place the top box at right angles to the bottom box. This will stop you lifting the top- box off and lifting the frames from the lower box too which the bees may put comb between if they are directly in line!!
It makes no difference to the bees. Look at comb in the wild it is at all angles to fill the space. It will make your job a lot easier in the long run! I wouldn't go brood and a half until late spring. Keep them snug for the winter and get them to dill every frame in the brood with food first!
E

 

[drex]

Why worry at the moment.

You say " I'm pretty sure it'll be 6 frames fully drawn and filled in 4 weeks when I next look ". So at the moment you have less than 6 frames "filled" ( but with what is what really matters). The queens rate of lay will be slowing down now, preparing for the winter bees.

I would not be thinking of adding extra brood space until 8-9 of my brood frames were full of brood, and certainly not now ( and I live in the warmer east). The bees need to maintain their temperature during the winter. More space = more space to heat. I would be looking at winter preparations now ( varroa treatment, amount of stores- while still leaving room for queen to lay). See what next year brings.

Why 4 weeks to next inspection? That will be about the time I will be opening mine for the last time until next spring ( apart from oxalic acid in Jan).

 

[melon]

if you do go brood and a half or double brood then place the top box at right angles to the bottom box. This will stop you lifting the top- box off and lifting the frames from the lower box too which the bees may put comb between if they are directly in line!!

Enrico, Do you do this with supers as well? And if so, does it help? I had never thought of it, but I do struggle when supers become stuck together and occassionally pulling out frames from below. I do try and twist round now, as I ease supers apart to prevent this, bit wondered how doing all the supers at 90 degrees, helps?

 

[Mike a]

I do struggle when supers become stuck together and occassionally pulling out frames from below. I do try and twist round now, as I ease supers apart to prevent this, bit wondered how doing all the supers at 90 degrees, helps?

A friend of mine does this with one of his buckfast colonies as they love to build brace comb between the frames and the QE. This is only way he can remove a super after cracking the propolis and giving the chamber a slight twist before lifting it off.

 

[user 6228]

North Wales, ... that covers every climatic condition from almost channel island weather(Anglesey) to sub artic (Cwm Idwal), and rainfalls from 18" to 200" and High intensity farm land to suburbia (wrexham , colwyn bay) to open moor and even wildly all 4 can be within sight of each other...Can we have a better clue to your local conditions?

 

[Skyhook]

I think most people seem to have missed the point that he is talking about 'new frames' ie over and above the 5 they came on, so they are now somewhere between 10 and 11 frames.

RAB, I'm not sure what you meant about not putting them in a brood box- it sounds to me as though they definitely need the space. There is usually logic behind your posts, but perhaps you could expound on that one?

It is a bit late in the year for expanding to brood-and-a-half, so you've got 6 months to think about that one. There is something like a concensus building around the fact that bees have been bred more prolific since the national was invented, and it is now verging on being a bit small- which is why I've gone to 14 x 12. I would suggest that the 2 main reasons for a larger brood space are that a bigger colony will produce a bigger crop (read some of Finman's posts on that subject) and to avoid swarms due to overcrowding.

I'm with drex on wondering why you're not inspecting for 4 weeks- personally, I like to know what's going on, it's my Big Brother!

 

[oliver90owner]

Skyhook,

The entire post was an attempt to encourage the thinking process. Make the poster think.

Moving a nuc to a full hive 'because that is what you do' will never make a beekeeper. You need to think about what and why you are doing it. The reasoning part! Tomorrow the scenario may be entirely different and all the advice given today may be superceded by a new set of observations and required actions.

You obviously got it as you said 'they definitely need the space'.

Is the need for a bigger brood not taken on the same basis? No real difference, just a stage later on. I give my bees more space purely for swarm avoidance - it gives them one less excuse for upping and leaving.

The larger colony is related to more foragers at the time of the flow, but some will give examples of single deep broods giving large honey crops.

There is a rough correlation between forager numbers and worker summer life span, I believe. But that is a lot further down the line than in a first season.

The OP has the bees in the hive and no chance of selection for any particular traits at this stage. If the queen is a prolific egg layer she may need more space. All nucs need more laying space unless either downright poor, or being kept small for other reasons.

I have a good idea of the space needed by my particular strain of mongrel and a ten frame WBC with single brood on deeps is not a good choice! BTDT, learned very quickly early on.

I don't actually know if the colony is really expanding or the space used is simply more because of the feeding/storing. I am suspecting more the latter, but that is another thinking problem. I always want more bees ready for the colony to go through the winter at this time of the season. Some seem to disagree with that idea. There lies that subtle difference between more supers or more brood space. Supers are where I want the honey surplus (apart from the Dartingtons!).

Beekeeping is a series of simple manipulations/checks/etc. What is complicated/difficult is recognising those simple needs, or getting out of the mire when things have gone seriously awry.

When I started I was always 'brainstorming' on a sheet of paper and whittling down all my thoughts to possibilities then into probabilities (and particularly - availability of kit) until I had a viable plan (on paper) to go forward with, to achieve the goal hoped for. Only then was it 'simple'.

RAB

 

[beeatshellards]

even now I put pen to paper ten years down the line , it clears your thoughts on what you percieve to be the case, and logical answers always come to the fore of any problem

 

[debzbees]

too many bees?

So glad you've asked this question....I'm just wondering what to do as I have a full super and a fairly full brood box. The queen I have came from a dadant and now in a poly national...which is smaller. I'm thinking of extracting the hone and then putting empty supers back on, hence they will have the space and can make more honey if they want? Any thoughts on this plan? Sorry I'm not helping your question much as I have the same one myself?

 

[ksjs]

Just a quick pre-work post to clarify a few things:

- I live just outside Bangor in N Wales. We are close to heather, gorse and the balsam is still flowering. We usually get a period of good later weather i.e. 2-3 weeks in Sep so not shutting up shop just yet I hope.

- I inspect regularly, what I meant was that at time of next inspection (later today or tomorrow) it will have been almost exactly 4 weeks since I got the nuc.

Thanks all for replies, very useful and very much appreciated. I am still somewhat confused as to the best course of action however. I was told I should add the super by a very experienced and respected beek who inspected the hive last week. I guess it's rarely black or white...

 

[ksjs]

Skyhook,
Moving a nuc to a full hive 'because that is what you do' will never make a beekeeper.
RAB

Good post, will read and digest. By the way I do appreciate the need for more space to avoid swarming. One of the things I'm still trying to get a feel for however is 'how much is enough'? That appears to be far more subtle.

 

[ksjs]

OK, just inspected and the ladies weren't so happy this afternoon, wonder if it was a bit cool for them, maybe everyone was home? They seemed to be feeding loads. No sign of chalk brood so I assume the white carcass I saw was an isolated case.

Right, to try and get some consensus / an answer to my original question here's some more info:

- All frames except one are fully drawn (the one that isn't fully drawn is drawn with capped stores on one side however, it's also the only frame with a gaping hole at one side of the frame, I wonder if there's any relation between the two [not being drawn and hole that is] ?)

- There's very little space (none?) left for laying.

- There are 5 frames of brood, the rest are stores.

- I have stopped feeding them as there's no drawing out to be done.

- Of the replies above, nobody was definitely in favour of adding a super for extra brood, 4 were definitely against (at least until next year and if I was going to do this it should be done with a larger brood box rather than adding a super) and 1 wasn't definite either way.

On the basis of this I should ignore the idea, for now, of adding a super for brood space and consider alternatives. I'm pretty concerned however about lack of space, for honey if nothing else, given likelihood of a decent spell of weather and my proximity to HB, heather and gorse. My feeling is that I should a add a super for honey storage and see how that goes. Is this a rubbish idea?

In relation to this I had read that bees may move stores i.e. if they've stored honey made from syrup they could transfer this to a super. Does this happen, if so why (seems like a waste of effort)?

Is there a 'definite' view on how much in terms of stores is enough to see a colony through the winter? In other words if nothing else happened now, is my colony likely to have enough to see it through the winter (6 frames of stores at the moment)?

Lastly, if I did want to switch to 14x12 frames, what is the procedure, if there is one, for getting the ladies to 'move home' as it were? Is it something like splitting existing brood nest with 14x12 frames and then gradually moving old frames outwards? I have no idea how / if that would work and it's a total guess so don't be too harsh on me if that's way off the mark.

Sorry for all the questions, any help gratefully appreciated. Cheers

 

[oliver90owner]

You have a super of stores already in the brood box. That is OK for winter but too early IMO. Here is my reasoning behind my treatment of smaller colonies. Not everyone will agree, of course.

Brood boxes are priimarily for brooding and your colony would have developed much further had there been eight frames of brood and most or all the rest were stores.

As I suspected, the bees have been busy filling drawn comb with sugar honey and not servicing that much extra brood. Most new beeks over-estimate the amount of brood and often quote frames in use, instead of full frames of brood. In 4 weeks her lay-rate has likely not increased greatly, but the stores most certainly have! Extra house bees, from the early brood cycle, should be occupied with servicing more brood production, not just drawing comb and filling it with stores.

What may appear as less, is often more - in terms of colony population (it is bees that go through the winter, not stores, primarily). If you don't have the former you don't need the latter, and once you have lots of bees they will store lots of sugar syrup in a short time later. All knock-on effects. More young bees can then mean comb is drawn that much faster later.

You have recognised there is no laying space. That means colony expansion is being compromised. Yes, restricted. Fewer new bees than optimum. Slower real expansion.

There are lots out there that advocate feed, feed, feed. You have the results of that philosophy.

To put it right may well mean they need more space as they could swarm, even this late in the year. However, drawing a full super of foundation is not a formality at this time of the season. You are stuck betwixt and between.

If one has drawn super frames, the problem is easily 'covered up' (not solved nor prevented) as the bees can relatively easily shift the stores to make laying space (I would be allowing her to lay upstairs in that scenario) and overwintering on a brood and a half as she has time to produce plenty of winter bees in that format.

Moving to 14 x 12 is for next spring, so time to investigate the methods available. It would be folly to attempt it at this point, as you only have the equivalent of about three frames of brood at this present time. You need to concentrate on getting the colony through the winter first.

I would be removing some of those stores, particularly if capped, and replacing with foundation. That would mean no extra total hive space and some opportunity to get some extra brood as soon as the foundation is started to be drawn. The stores removed can be put back later, if required, or used up next spring for early colony expansion.

Sorry if this sounds severe, but you may well have lost a week, maybe two, of colony development by feeding continuously. Not good at this time of the year. But best I can offer you in your present situation.

If the colony is foraging well and the weather is favourable, I would be sticking a single frame of foundation very adjacent to (if not in the centre of, as advised by Polyhive), the brood nest.

No doubt the 'feed, feed, feed' contingent will be along to make alternative suggestions for extricating your colony from this malady.

Regards, RAB

 

[ksjs]

As I suspected, the bees have been busy filling drawn comb with sugar honey and not servicing that much extra brood. Most new beeks over-estimate the amount of brood and often quote frames in use, instead of full frames of brood. In 4 weeks her lay-rate has likely not increased greatly, but the stores most certainly have! Extra house bees, from the early brood cycle, should be occupied with servicing more brood production, not just drawing comb and filling it with stores.

Yes, I'm talking frames in use rather than full frames of brood, I guess actually usage might be as low as 30% on some of the frames being used for brood.

I'm definitely questioning the 'feed, feed, feed' idea, what's the point in having stores if there are no bees to feed?

As to what to do next I should have mentioned that there is one half free frame. I wrote this off as the bees seem to have done the same. It's the one with the hole at one side I mentioned above; one half is drawn with stores and the other is undrawn, this is the side nearest the brood nest. Is it worth moving this to beside the nest? Can the bees repair the hole (oval-shaped about 10cm tall, 4cm wide at its widest)? Right now I have a logistical issue in that I have no spare brood box frames though that can be resolved quickly.

I'd really like to put a super on now too but exclude the queen. This is a) to give them something to do and b) summer isn't over and there's still heather / gorse / HB in the area. One of my concerns here is that they might use stores to draw the comb and this wouldn't be great in terms of their wintering needs. I hope / assume it would also allow them to make more brood space by transferring stores upstairs? By the way I dislike the idea of a brood and a half and would prefer not to go down this route.

Not sure how relevant it is but I should say is that I've reviewed my previous inspection notes and at one point there were 7 frames in use for brood and earlier this week that was down to 6. I wonder why? Perhaps though it's just poor observation on my part and the fact that the hive was so full of bees meant I missed brood (I don't like shaking bees of frames as it just makes them angry).

Sounds like my options are:

1. Do nothing;
2. Move the half-drawn frame to beside brood nest and maybe even get another frame of foundation (and remove an existing frame of stores) to place beside brood; or
3. Move the half-drawn frame and add a super with excluder and see how September goes.

Any thoughts / comments?

By the way, how many frames of brood is 'standard' in a national box and how fully filled with brood should a good brood frame be: 40/50/60/70% or what?

As ever any help much appreciated.