Double Brood

[providence wayne]

As you can tell i'm new to beekeeping.My question is at what point should i put on another brood box .The brood that is on now has 4 frames of sealed brood 2 unsealed 2 stores and 2 1/2 drawn comb.The guy I bought the nuc off (A really nice guy) reccomended to double brood so i could split the colony as insurance over winter.Seems a good idea to me but i don't know when to do it.All suggestions welcome

Thanks

 

[Poly Hive]

When they get to 8 (frames of brood) is when I add the 2nd one.

PH

 

[northernsoul]

Depends on type of bee.
Double brood good to stop swarming but less opportunity for gathering honey. Why bother getting them to fill another brood box when they could be working on supers.

Putting on supers will ease overcrowding

 

[jimbeekeeper]

Why bother getting them to fill another brood box

Depends if you want honey or bees?

Double brood can quickly become 4 or 5 nucs.

 

[Onge]

Depends on type of bee.
Double brood good to stop swarming but less opportunity for gathering honey. Why bother getting them to fill another brood box when they could be working on supers.

Putting on supers will ease overcrowding

I disagree more bees more honey and more flexability with nucs splits etc.

 

[Finman]

more bees more honey .

It goes exactly that way.

Splits need always bees.

If you take away 20% of bees from the hive, perhaps you do not not get any more surpluss honey.

But when main yield is is over, you may split a big hive to 5 one-box hives and they will be normal hives for winter.

 

[Hivemaker.]

Double brood is good,but it depends on the strain of bee as regards if they need the extra space for laying or not,i have some of the local mongrels which have simply drawn out there second box from foundation and filled them solid with honey...including the supers on top,also have many which fill almost the entire second brood with brood and not much honey....nor is there much honey in there supers. Do some strains of local mongrel need a bigger box than standard national...obviously not or they would use it.

 

[Finman]

.
I discard the queens which are not able to lay two stores.

 

[providence wayne]

Thanks everyone a lot to ponder on

 

[Poly Hive]

The primary issue Wayne is what do you want to achieve this year?

If I can make a suggestion it would be highly beneficial to you to enter winter with two colonies. Then consider honey next year.

PH

 

[whizzwheels]

I got my bees this time last year and was told by the person I got them off, too double brood and I would have two hives going into winter. However to be honest I felt they never expanded enough to fill two brood boxes in the first year.
In fact when I thought about putting a super on to get some honey in mid summer I found they had no stores left in the hive and I ended up putting a feeder on.
So I just left them alone and fed them up to get through winter on a brood and a super. I now have a very strong colony which I got 16 pounds of honey off last week from a super I put on mid April and have now split the colony as they were loads of queens cells which are due to emerge any day now (rain permitting)!
So I would tend to let them build up to have a strong colony for winter instead of two weak colony which may not get through the winter.

Andrew