Brood chambers

[Understudy]

Okay time to ask for a question that i am sure will have a lot of different answers for different reasons.

I am currently setting up my hives with one deep and one medium for brood.  After that I am using mediums for for honey. I have an excluder I am using right now on one hive and I will use one on the other when it gets to that stage. Here is the question is one deep and one medium for brood enough or should it be one deep and two mediums? I eventually would like to do three mediums but I will switch that next year.

Sincerely,
Brendhan

[Michael Bush]

>I have an excluder I am using right now on one hive and I will use one on the other when it gets to that stage.

Why?

> Here is the question is one deep and one medium for brood enough or should it be one deep and two mediums?

If you don't use the excluder the bees will answer the question for you.  :)

> I eventually would like to do three mediums but I will switch that next year.

Or four mediums...

[Understudy]

>I have an excluder I am using right now on one hive and I will use one on the other when it gets to that stage.

Why?

*sigh*
because
No really, because they keep the queen out of the honey supers I would prefer to not to run brood through the extractor. I understand some people have some very strong opinions on excluders. I right now would like to use one and work on removing it later.

> Here is the question is one deep and one medium for brood enough or should it be one deep and two mediums?

If you don't use the excluder the bees will answer the question for you.  :)

Fear uncertainty and doubt exist here. If there is comb the queen can climb it. If the queen likes the cells she will maybe lay eggs in it. While I realize I can't prevent bees from dying when working on a hive, I would like to try not to run them through the extractor.

> I eventually would like to do three mediums but I will switch that next year.

Or four mediums...

I have seen those hives that are 20 feet tall, I am not sure I want to go there. I understand that many people recommend two deeps for brood but I wasn't sure if a deep and medium would be enough. I understand three mediums equal two deeps. So a deep and a medium isn't quite the recommendation but is it adaquate? If it is not why? If my thinking is way off base here. I am willing to be reeducated.

Sincerely,
Brendhan

[amymcg]

Brendhan,

I use an excluder, and I have no problems getting a good honey crop.  Do what works for you.

[thegolfpsycho]

I don't want to run brood through the extractor either.  I don't use excluders BUT because of the frames being interchangeable, I can move brood down, and honey up.  There is a tendency for the bottom box, at least here it seems a tendency, to plug completely with pollen.  That effectively limits my unlimited brood nest, and until August, I want big monster colonys to make big monster crops.  The honey cap many times works as an excluder and keeps the queen from moving up into your supers.  If she still does, whats the loss?  A frame or two?  Pull the outside frames on the next box down (almost always full frames of honey}, kick the next two out, and move the brood down.  Viola.. a full deep to harvest.

[Michael Bush]

>Fear uncertainty and doubt exist here. If there is comb the queen can climb it. If the queen likes the cells she will maybe lay eggs in it.

Then you needed another box, and now you have one.  The brood nest is a consolidated sphere of brood.  It is not brood willy nilly all over the hive.

> While I realize I can't prevent bees from dying when working on a hive, I would like to try not to run them through the extractor.

I never use an excluder and I never run brood through the extractor.

>I have seen those hives that are 20 feet tall, I am not sure I want to go there.

No, you don't.   If they are making that much honey, harvest more often.  That's another reason I went to four by fours (3 1/2") for a stand and a top entrance.  Not nearly so tall as when I had a stand on top of concrete blocks.

> I understand that many people recommend two deeps for brood but I wasn't sure if a deep and medium would be enough.

Many people, including finsky and anyone using deeps with an unlimited brood nest, run three deesp for brood.

> I understand three mediums equal two deeps. So a deep and a medium isn't quite the recommendation but is it adaquate?

If you have a really good queen, it's crowding it, but it is getting close to enough room if you keep an eye on it and remove honey and pollen when it gets clogged up.  With a booming queen I often have brood in four ten frame mediums.

> If it is not why?

Because sometimes a queen lays more brood than that will hold AND they need room for pollen and honey.

[Understudy]

Well I have decided to try an experiment. I have the one hive with the excluder. The other does not. I won't put it on. I am going to add the medium  bodies as it needs them, up to a point. No 20 box hive. I am looking for two mediums to make for good honey supers. I will allow the brood to use as many mediums as they want, again if I am not going try for a 20 hive box colony. If he bees are laying brood in more than 1 deep and three mediums I may want to split them. Hell I may want to clone  the queen.;)

It will be interesting to see what happens this summer.

Sincerely,
Brendhan

[Michael Bush]

Two identically run hives often have dramatically different results, so be careful not to be too sure of your conclusions based on only two hives.  :)