Double brood

[Erichalfbee]

14 x 12 for me but they ended up brood and a shallow.
Shallow is now under

 

[Luminos]

14 x 12 for me, too - double brood too heavy/too much faff for me, but good luck with it Kilsic

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Standard National deeps for me - although three have shallows under - one because of colony size, 'tothers because of stores they had at the end of summer.

 

[Dared]

Is one bb not full of stores ?

Hi,

The boxes were a mix of brood and food so could not reduce to one box. Maybe able to remove the bottom box once the number of bees goes down and they move up into the top box but might just leave it in place as cannot see it giving a problem for them.

 

[Finman]

.
Extra room under is not so harmfull as up. It is more than normal that in douple brood cluster fills later only upper box.

But let the bees stay in peace during wintering. When bees start to fly, you may take the lower box off. Then you can pick too old frames off from usage.
It is advanatage to spring build up that hive is tight after winter. Bee loss from cluster has been more or less big.

 

[masterBK]

Have been wintering all my colonies on double national brood for 50 years and hardly ever lose any over winter and then usually from drone layers. Isolation starvation rarely ever occurs as plenty of stores on board and bees able to get to all parts via the relative warm bee space between the boxes. Swarm prevention by Demaree means that I get very few colonies actually building swarm cells. Only downside is the occasional heavy lifting and having to reduce to single brood for taking about a quarter of my hives to crops. My bees are black mongrels but the queens are capable of laying on 15 or 16 combs by end of April.

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

Genuine question, not "statement as question" but isn't this a theoretical question anyway, on the basis that it's too late? I'd be terrified of splitting 2 brood boxes right down the middle of the cluster. Or would they never cluster on a set of seams?

 

[Michael Palmer]

I've used double brood langstroth and a medium super as my broodnest for many years. We need more winter stores than you in the UK. To reach the first spring flows, our bees need 70-80 pounds of stores.

 

[royaber]

MasterBK sounds just like my old mentor Len Ross from Manchester 40 years ago. I don't think I've heard of Demareeing since then. Surprising how this debate goes on - we were arguing double versus one and a half then.
Most of us then were keeping Italian types and needed the space. A few had Caucasians from Mountain Grey and then you had problems with doubles of any kind because they stuck everything together so well with propolis.
20 years ago I moved to Wales and restocked from a local beekeeper and I've tried to breed from a couple of last years favourites every year using 14x12 single brood. So bees, beekeeper and hive type meld together.

We old timers are using what has worked over the years, the problem is when you are starting, if you ask three different beekeepers you will get three different answers and more confusion.

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

I don't think I've heard of Demareeing since then.

A number of people have recommended it to me as I head - TERRIFIED - towards my first swarming season. Still not sure what I'm going to do, but Demaree is definitely still about. I have bought Snelgrove's book, of course.

 

[Luminos]

A number of people have recommended it to me as I head - TERRIFIED - towards my first swarming season. Still not sure what I'm going to do, but Demaree is definitely still about. I have bought Snelgrove's book, of course.

I quite enjoy the swarming season

 

[beeno]

14 x 12 for me, too - double brood too heavy/too much faff for me, but good luck with it Kilsic [/QUOTE

Same here. Put up with it to reduce the risk of swarming in the summer, but back into one brood box for winter. We'll see how it goes!

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

I quite enjoy the swarming season

If this were not a family-friendly forum, I would draw the obvious analogy. Hint: >;->

 

[farbee]

Do you just let leave them to it MK. With my double broods I find that the pack the top box with stores and then end running out of space for brood rearing. Am I missing a trick?

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

Do you just let leave them to it MK. With my double broods I find that the pack the top box with stores and then end running out of space for brood rearing. Am I missing a trick?

What happens if you switch the boxes at that point?

 

[farbee]

What happens if you switch the boxes at that point?

Don't know as I have not tried. But I bet others will have the answer.

 

[VEG]

move the stores to the outsides of the two boxes empty frames in the middle Gives the queen room to lay and mimics the bees way of putting the honey to the outside.

 

[beeno]

What happens if you switch the boxes at that point?

Hi there,
No point in switching if they are both full. Next season you can even out stores situation between your two colonies or harvest if the honey is ripe. You always need laying space in brood chamber otherwise they swarm, but you know that.

 

[masterBK]

Do you just let leave them to it MK. With my double broods I find that the pack the top box with stores and then end running out of space for brood rearing. Am I missing a trick?[/QUOTE-------------------------------------------------------------
Demarree : In the spring the queens are always laying in the top box but as the brood nest expands it extend downwards into the bottom box. When Q laying on about 14 to 16 combs I rearrange the hive so that queen plus about 3 combs of sealed brood go in bottom box (surrounded by combs of foundation or empty drawn comb), topped by excluder then two supers, another excluder and finally the top box with all the unsealed brood and any remaining sealed brood. A top entrance is provided at the rear to let the drones and workers fly out. If queen not found then all bees shaken into bottom box and nurse bees go up within minutes to join the brood A week later need to go through top box to remove any queen cells (only about half my colonies do) When all/most of the brood in top box hatched then brood boxes reversed again with queen always in the bottom box. This normaly gets the colony through the swarming season preventing the building of swarm cells.System is flexible enough that demaree tops can be used to finish off bars of jenter or grafted larvae, divide into nuclei or make whole box splits using split board.

 

[Swarm]

Swapping the chambers around mid season keeps them busy.

No point in switching if they are both full.

Full of what? Brood? If it's 22 frames of mainly brood then a third brood chamber might be best. If quite a lot of those frames are stores then remove them, arrange the frames and replace with drawn comb or foundation.