How do you convert

[JackM]

How would you get full sized frames from a nuc worked down to medium super size frames?  For now I just stuck them in a pair of super boxes, with super frames to one side.  They are building comb on the smaller frames, but how do you work out the full sized frames?

Should I wait until it is capped honey?  But these frames are in the bottom brood area.

Should I do a sort of cutout when any given frame doesn't have any brood, or just hatched?  Mad bees, messy, but solves the issue in one step.

Other methods to convert these frames to mediums without a lot of bee loss, hive degradation?
Thanks

[Blackwater Bee]

What worked for me:

As you add Mediums as they are building out ( up or down ), look for the Queen ( about once a month ),
when you find her on the Mediums, add your Queen Excluder to keep her from going back to the Deep Frames, eventually the Brood will hatch out and the only thing you may have left in the Deeps is food stores. I have done this to several hives in 1 season without any problems.

BB

[AllenF]

Cut and paste.    Either but the deeps down to med size, with comb still in, or cut the comb out and tie them into new med frames.  Or you can slowly work the deeps up to the top of the boxes, then pull them out as they are cleaned out late winter.   

[mikecva]

Most beeks I know that had full sized nucs just got full sized boxes for the brood boxes (2) and mediums for their supers.

One however wanted only mediums on his hive so he after he put the queen and as many bees as he could in the medium brood boxes, he closed up the new med. hive except for a half inch hole (with the queen in a 'hair clip' trap and bees) for three days with a top feeder. Most of the bees went to the new home except for about a hundred nurse bees. He then cut down the full sized frame foundations with caped brood so they would fit into the medium boxes (this involved cutting the tops off the foundations to save as much caped brood as he could.) He then put the cut outs into the center of the new hive (on new frames of course). Hope this helps.  -Mike

[Vance G]

You are on the right track.  Just move the deep frame/s to the very outside of the two mediums.  The bees will sooner or later have no brood in the outside frame and you can remove it.  Then I would lay it on its side on the top bars under a covering box and the bees will rob it out.  Repeat moving deep framesto the outside until all deep frames are out of the mediums and the spaces made available are filled with 6 1/8 frames.  Then you can take the robbed out frames thru your table saw and put on new bottom bars.  When cutting remember to allow for the thickness of the bottom bar!

[Joe D]

You can do like Blackwater said when queen is in med. put an excluder between them.  When the deep has no more brood in it you can cut the box and frames down to med. 



Joe

[JackM]

Okay, you folks need to understand I have no deep boxes and I am not going to make any, so right now, I have this big open area in the very bottom box where the deeps extend down from the box above.  The space adjacent to the deeps in both boxes has been filled with foundationless frames and they have begun to make comb in them.  The big gap down below is a concern, and the inspection of the bottom box is a real PIA, I have to get an empty medium and set it in that, makes for a very cluttered work space.

Not worried about saving the frames, do want the comb though.  That is why I was thinking on just cutting the comb out of the big frames once I am certain there is no brood in a frame. 

Going to get a little stretch of decent weather and the flow is on, so want to have a plan before I act, and don't want to really mess them up with the flow.   I also do not know if these are with or without foundation, every square mm is filled in on the deep frames.

Yo Michael, what did you do when you converted?????

[mikecva]

I was lazy. I like all mediums so of the two nucs I was given, I let them sit in one full sized brood box and added two mediums when it was time. After a few years the brood area in the full sized boxes was black and the cells had gotten to small for the bees so they refused to use those old frames. By then the bees had been given a third medium box to use for brood. I simply removed the bottom box (the original full sized box). The bees had some stores on the side (but very little) that I let them rob for two weeks (about 200 feet from the original hives). I then just stored the full sized boxes that I gave to a younger beekeeper (who was strong enough to mess with the heaver boxes.  Now when I make nucs I use medium nuc boxes.  -Mike