Consolidating double brood to single

[Paul_Ward1]

I have a double brood setup where the upper brood box has no brood but is 100% full of uncapped and capped stores.
I’d like to get it down to a single brood end remove the store frames.
The question is that there are still a ton of bees on the frames and if I have to shake them all off, I might shake out a load of the uncapped stores.
Are there any tricks like moving the brood to another bit of the apiary to get rid of the foragers etc?

Thanks

Paul

 

[Erichalfbee]

What’s the bottom box like? If there is room for a some of the stores swap them in and clear the top box with a clearer board. No need to shake any frames. But do make sure you don’t move the queen up.

 

[Jimmy]

Why do you want to reduce to single brood?

 

[Paul_Ward1]

Why do you want to reduce to single brood?

Seems like a disproportionate amount of stores and not much brood. No brood in one of the boxes. Thought it would be better to reduce down and keep the stores in reserve for this or other hives

 

[Paul_Ward1]

What’s the bottom box like? If there is room for a some of the stores swap them in and clear the top box with a clearer board. No need to shake any frames. But do make sure you don’t move the queen up.

Bottom box relatively full of stores with a couple of frames of brood

 

[Erichalfbee]

Bottom box relatively full of stores with a couple of frames of brood

Extract the uncapped frames and put them in the bottom box. Sounds like your queen has no room to lay.

 

[Paul_Ward1]

Thanks. It’s the practical bit really. I hadn’t considered a clearer board as ‘normally’ there would be some brood in both boxes.

So, clearer board should work because there is zero brood in the top box?
If I clear them down into an empty super between the brood boxes. Remove the cleared top brood box (with stores only) and extract.
Swap the extracted frames into the lower box for the queen to lay.

Is using a clearer board a standard method for consolidating from 2 brood to one to reduce the loading by of bees in the box that you want to remove?

Thanks again.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Is using a clearer board a standard method for consolidating from 2 brood to one to reduce the loading by of bees in the box that you want to remove?

It's standard for clearing supers and I use it for clearing united colonies sometimes if there is no brood in the top box.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Swap the extracted frames into the lower box for the queen to lay.

Two or three might be good but do keep an eye on stores from now on. They need enough for winter

 

[Paul_Ward1]

Super helpful. Thank you

 

[ericbeaumont]

They need enough for winter

I’d like to get it down to a single brood end remove the store frames.

Agree with Dani: extract 3-5 of the bottom BB frames and return them (flank the current brood combs); remove, extract and return on the same day.

Suggest you leave them on DBB, unless you want the faff of feeding a single box and worrying over winter.