Brood Boxes

[Murox]

When you move brood up the queen is obviously already laying in the lower box , so you 'force" nothing.
If you move brood down they will create a honey ceiling in the upper brood.
When you move brood from the lower box you have brood all the way to the top of the frame, this forces them to create their honey ceiling in the supers . Less honey in brood frames means more space for laying, so less reason to swarm

Thank you for the clarification. I take it you continuously manipulate throughout the season ?

 

[Poly Hive]

Of course you manipulate, the whole point is to maximise the laying space in the brood boxes. Bruise combs of stores so t they are moved up to the supers.

PH

 

[SDM]

Thank you for the clarification. I take it you continuously manipulate throughout the season ?

Not necessary they maintain it themselves until the brood nest starts to contract( as long as they have space above to store honey) The next time I meddle is before going to heather. A similar job so that every upper box frame is brood. Eggs and open brood to the outside frames, sealed and emerging brood to the centre and as Pete says any stores frames are bruised and put below the brood to encourage them to move it up

 

[JonnyPicklechin]

I use National deeps only, I have over 120 dummy boards so I can expand or contract brood or supers at will. Your cheapest dummy boards are made from polystyrene fish boxes 25mm thick just cut out with a hot knife and push inside a frame and paint with masonry paint, no glue needed. Your local fishmonger will thank you for taking them.

Great idea. Could you share a pic?

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[Murox]

I use National deeps only, I have over 120 dummy boards so I can expand or contract brood or supers at will. Your cheapest dummy boards are made from polystyrene fish boxes 25mm thick just cut out with a hot knife and push inside a frame and paint with masonry paint, no glue needed. Your local fishmonger will thank you for taking them.

being nosey now - which frames do you use,Dn4 or........?

 

[Swarm]

Great idea. Could you share a pic?

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No need, make up a deep frame and cut the material to fit inside. I use 25mm recticel with foil tape covering cut edges, the thickness is similar to a frame of comb.
The beauty of this system is the flexibility it gives you while keeping brood on frames of the same size.

 

[Lancs Lad]

I only use Dn4 frames

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

You don't need to leave a beespace on a dummy board as it's supposed to imitate the end wall of the hive - by incorporating a beespace with DN4 frames you are leaving the bees with double beespace at the outside of the last brood frame

 

[Swarm]

These frames are not used like dummy boards per se, My dummy board goes in first and the insulated partition frames go in after, however many, depending on each particular colony.
My colonies average sixteen brooded combs, not big enough for double and I don't like 14x12, as for brood and a half ..........