brood and a half again

[sahtlinurk]

how to manage brood and a half through the season? and please stick with the thread

 

[Haughton Honey]

Why don't you consider double brood as it ensures the bees have enough of their own honey to last them through the long winter months. I didn't need to feed my double brood colonies through the winter and they look as though they're going to come out very strong and very healthy.

As far as I'm concerned brood and a half is the worst of all combinations. The only benefit I can see (other than increased brood space) is that the pollen arch is restricted to the first super with the brood in it.

Unfortunately, when you find queen cells in the super and you want to artificial swarm you get stuck with a "super" sized box.

You don't get the benefit of lifting frames up and down (between brood chambers in a double brood set-up).

With double brood, you normally find them in the top box at the end of winter and you can normally just lift the bottom box out and add a clean box of foundation - so getting good comb change in your methodology.

I know that I'm admittedly pushing my own system, but if you're sure that you want to go either of these two ways instead of single 14x12 or Commercial boxes then I'd strongly opt for double brood.

 

[Mike a]

I agree with White Park Cattle on his reply

In my association there is one person who swears the brood and half method is worth the hassle, almost every one else changed to 14x12 those who didn't wanted to build up their colony numbers or tried to fight the swarming instinct throughout the summer as they had a prolific queen.

 

[BKF Admin]

I ran one of my colonies on brood and a half last year,I managed to put the queen excluder above the super by mistake.

The whole episode was a pain as I could not move frames around as I wanted to.

It felt like running a Langstroth next to a National.

 

[sahtlinurk]

why i am asking is that i got two hives with supers on. should i put them under the brood to get rid of the old honey/sugar syrup? at the same time i abundant the conversion to bigger box this year. two broods seems the solution here.

Lauri

 

[Haughton Honey]

Remove your supers and scratch the store cappings with your hive tool......place the supers under the brood boxes and the bees will do the rest.

Make sure there's enough spare space in the brood box for the stores and for the queen to lay. You might need to replace full combs of stores with either foundation or drawn comb if this is not the case.

A little later on either add a second brood box or go down the large brood box route - whichever you end up deciding on.

 

[jezd]

Remove your supers and scratch the store cappings with your hive tool......place the supers under the brood boxes and the bees will do the rest.

with this wont she lay in the super on the bottom too once they move the stores?

 

[FROGDOGDIVER]

Why don't you consider double brood as it ensures the bees have enough of their own honey to last them through the long winter months. I didn't need to feed my double brood colonies through the winter and they look as though they're going to come out very strong and very healthy.

As far as I'm concerned brood and a half is the worst of all combinations. The only benefit I can see (other than increased brood space) is that the pollen arch is restricted to the first super with the brood in it.

Unfortunately, when you find queen cells in the super and you want to artificial swarm you get stuck with a "super" sized box.

You don't get the benefit of lifting frames up and down (between brood chambers in a double brood set-up).

With double brood, you normally find them in the top box at the end of winter and you can normally just lift the bottom box out and add a clean box of foundation - so getting good comb change in your methodology.

I know that I'm admittedly pushing my own system, but if you're sure that you want to go either of these two ways instead of single 14x12 or Commercial boxes then I'd strongly opt for double brood.

How less prone to swarming do you find the bees on a double brood box system? Is it not harder to deal with than brood and a half or single brood as you have twice the amount of frames to artificially swarm?

 

[Haughton Honey]

with this wont she lay in the super on the bottom too once they move the stores?

I should have mentioned the QX between the boxes jezd. You're right. Apologies.

Frog - I've replied to your PM.