How high can you go?

joshcowin · Sep 20, 2018

Hi all after seeing a few photos of Hives with more than one brood box and super how high can you physically go before it makes it hard for yourself and also the bees in regards to bringing honey in and taking it to the top super? What’s the most you have seen? Also what ratio of brood boxes to supers would you go for? Thanks

Hachi · Sep 20, 2018

My cousin often took a pair of step ladders with him in the eighties and nineties

Johnnifer · Sep 20, 2018

Just for the ease of lifting a 25lb box on and off the stack you probably wouldn't want to go any more than chest height.

Brood makes bees, bees make honey so its probably a 50:50 ratio between brood and honey. If the beekeeper can't work it out I'm sure the bees can. From what I've read, I'm new to this too, the trick is not to let them have too many wide open spaces but not to crowd them in either.

How long is your piece of string?

Eyeman · Sep 21, 2018

One of mine with 7 supers in Aug this year. 3 supers being cleared and 2 of the remaining 4 full. 200+lbs honey from that colony this year as well as 5000+ mites. Big colonies are honey and mite factories. I like to remove the honey supers when they are capped as I extract throughout the season. Prefere not to have more that 4 supers on any colony. Nectar was coming in so fast with this colony that I had to keep adding 2 supers a week to ensure there was space; they seemed to be too busy collecting nectar to worry about capping the honey.

joshcowin · Sep 21, 2018

Thanks guys reason for asking is because where I am planning to put my hives although this is room for probably 4 hives id rather go for bigger boxes and have more room to work then.

oliver90owner · Sep 21, 2018

Do remember the simple facts of honeybee worker life cycles.

How many eggs per day, the queen is able to lay, determines the space required for the brood nest. The cell cycle times will be about 25 days, so there is little point in providing more space than the brood can occupy. It will simply be filled with stores.

Do remember, also, that bees do not bring in honey - they bring in nectar which they convert to honey. Space for nectar is considerably more than taken by honey.

How tall are you? How strong are you? How big are your honey boxes? How tall is the hive stand, if used? Do you intend using steps or similar? How long is a piece of string?

Additionally, the unfilled supers can easily be placed just above the brood nest, not at the top of the stack? That solves one of your conceived problems at a stroke!

Thinking through potential unknowns usually provides more than one possible answer, of which you can select the often obvious route to take.