Double brood and nucs

[herefordshirehoney]

I have one colony that is going all guns full brood nest on 7 poly frames was drawing out supers and storing nectar. I'm wondering if this hive may be good to run double brood on. When do you decide to put another brood on? I'm on langstoth polys. I don't have any drawn brood frames only two
Frames of stores so would be undrawn.

I do intend to buy in 4 queens hopefully start of August 2 to replace current as there in second season and my mentor recommended I did at end of year. I'm thinking that afte honey flow I could use these brood frames to create nucs...... Not sure if I over winter the existing hives and combine in spring next year.

Thanks
Chris

 

[Finman]

.
Give to it second brood box and you will see. Otherwise no one knows what it will be.

.

 

[Tom Bick]

Yes just go for it with the 2nd bb on the bottom this way the bees will expand down when they need the space.

 

[Teemore]

Went Double Brood on one colony on Friday - hope I wasn't too late giving them the extra space as there was 11 full frames of BIAS: weather and other commitments had kept me away from that apiary for about three weeks....

 

[herefordshirehoney]

Went Double Brood on one colony on Friday - hope I wasn't too late giving them the extra space as there was 11 full frames of BIAS: weather and other commitments had kept me away from that apiary for about three weeks....

Snap in the sense I should have done it sooner, making up the frames tonight and hopefully will have a quite spot tomorrow morning to do the switch without opening the main colony in time for the weather forecast for Saturday.

 

[herefordshirehoney]

This option is now out as I managed to squish the queen somehow so have split in two so i've got a backup in case one fails to raise a decent queen.

Question about double brood hive's - what is the best way to encourage the bee's not to store oil seed rape or other honey in the double brood box other than brood! They seemed to have plenty of supers on but they did insist on store the OSR in the double brood box and wont use the bugger up!

 

[ultreen1]

T

Question about double brood hive's - what is the best way to encourage the bee's not to store oil seed rape or other honey in the double brood box other than brood! They seemed to have plenty of supers on but they did insist on store the OSR in the double brood box and wont use the bugger up!

Maybe swap some of the frames around so the queen lays in them before they get filled? Last year I had a brood box full of stores so heavy I could hardly lift it!

 

[herefordshirehoney]

That is my fear with OSR - I didnt want to move brood up though as I didnt know if it would disrupt the nest. Do I split it 50/50 for example to help them along.... I didnt want it to cause issues so thought id check before doing rather than learn from my mistakes.

 

[ultreen1]

I moved the brood around last season to no adverse affects and I plan to do the same sometime this week once they have cleaned up the frames! (Mouldy pollen in cells)
I'm not going crazy just one or 2 drawn combs in the middle of the brood nest over the 2 boxes.
As for stores in the brood frames I extracted them.
Yesterday I saw some good examples of solid osr honey in brood/deep frames at the asc apiary... After seeing that yesterday I would extract osr from the frames! What a mess!
Luckily I don't have osr near me so I don't have that concern

 

[ultreen1]

I didn't split last year had a huge colony and a great honey crop